Frenetic Underground
by flairina
Summary: Stuck in a place I don't know? Check. Forced to fix a problem that ain't even my fault? Check. People doin' their level best to kill and/or chase me down? Check. If it weren't for the weird tattoo theme it'd be just like the rest of my life...
1. Happy Landings

I don't own any of the characters mentioned here.

tTtTt

"RANMA YOU JERK!"

***WHAM!***

wWwWw

*sigh*

The sound was largely lost to the winds as an annoyed, still wet, and female Ranma whistled through the air like a human bullet.

"This has GOT to end. I can't keep having to take half my day to make my way back just because she misunderstands… well, EVERYTHING. This ends today." Ranma related to the wind. The wind said nothing back, but it was therapeutic for Ranma to voice her troubles regardless.

Shortly after coming to this decision, Ranma noticed gravity was finally taking hold of her again. 'Now where did she send me this time…' Ranma wondered. She righted herself from her relaxed position, readying herself to touch down.

Unfortunately, a building happened to be right in the way.

***WHAM!***

eEeEe

Ranma blinked. She was staring up at the sky, surrounded on all sides by enormous buildings.

"Wha?..." Ranma stood up, trying to recall what had just happened. She was lying in the middle of the street, surrounded by a sea of people. Akane had hit her, and then...

"Right, I smashed into a skyscraper." Ranma shrugged, not particularly bothered by this. She'd had worse from Ryouga and Pops. Smashing into things at high velocity was still better than things going AT high velocity being smashed into you, like someone else's foot, fist, or ridiculously thick skull.

Ranma was wondering how she'd ended up on the ground though, considering she'd hit the building near the top. How'd that happen? Had someone carried her down?

Whatever, there was no real point dwelling on that when she was already down here. It wasn't really a pressing concern. All that was left to do was figure out where she was, get some hot water, and get started on heading back to the chaos that was Nerima.

Ranma stood up and stretched, talking to herself while she did so. "Guess I'll just ask a random person where- huh?"

Her train of thought was interrupted due to having stepped on something hard. Lifting her foot and looking down, Ranma realized she had stepped on what appeared to be a black pin with an odd, pointed symbol on it. She picked it up to examine it- the white symbol resembled some sort of sharply pointed cross, with added wing like embellishments to its top and bottom.

"Huh… cool design." Ranma pocketed it, figuring it would make a nice keepsake when she got back from… wherever this was. Getting back to her original task, Ranma picked out a random girl from the multitude passing by, and walked over to ask where she was and the location of the nearest train.

"Hey, excuse me, but could you- hey!" Ranma squawked as the girl kept walking, having totally ignored her. Granted, she was on what looked like one of those annoying cell phones (though it looked like a miniature model), and the street was pretty loud, but Ranma had been _right next_ to the girl. She'd had to have been deliberately ignoring Ranma to not hear her. Ranma bristled. 'You meet more and more jerks every day I guess…'

Trying again, this time Ranma picked a girl that was not on a phone. Walking over, she asked the girl "Excuse me, I'm a bit lost. What city is this?"

Ranma cringed, hoping she didn't sound too much like Ryouga right now. She'd had to do this far too often for her liking, and frankly she was starting to wonder if the lost boy had cursed her to carry a similar moniker whenever Akane got mad.

It turned out not to matter, as this girl appeared to be ignoring Ranma as well, and was walking away. Now Ranma was rather angry. Pouring on a little speed, she caught up rather quickly with the departing girl. "Hey! Girl! I'm talking to- huh?"

Ranma had just tried to get the girl's attention by putting a hand on her shoulder.

Except that her hand had passed right through the girl.

"What the-" Ranma experimentally poked her hand through the girl's back. And again. And again. Until, had Ranma been able to actually touch the girl, she would have had a couple hundred holes punched in her lower back.

Ranma stepped back from the young woman, who wandered off, still oblivious to the apparently intangible and unhearable girl. This was a new one. A sudden complete inability to be noticed by anyone else? Ranma's mind rapidly sorted through possibilities. Curse? Probably not. She was fairly sure she hadn't done anything that would cause something like that this time, so that was out, or at least unlikely. Spell? Possible. If it was one it was more likely than not a result of Kuno or Mousse screwing around again. Kuno seemed to have a talent for happening upon idiotic magical items, and Mousse had access to tons of Amazon magic right in the building he lived in. But Kuno almost certainly would have done the same thing he'd done with the wishing sword, and loudly proclaimed his ownership of such before actually doing anything, and Mousse usually at least waited until he thought Ranma had offended Shampoo to do anything, and Ranma hadn't even seen recently. Maybe Cologne? Was the wrinkled old prune going to show up and demand Ranma marry Shampoo to get rid of whatever this was? It didn't seem like her style; she was usually fairly passive...

Thoroughly weirded out, Ranma decided to forget this for now. It was time to find a map; she could figure this mystery out after she figured out where she was.

Testing just how untouchable and invisible she was, Ranma passed right through entire hordes of people without even slowing down. She couldn't really see while passing through, but she was perfectly unharmed coming out the other end. Bizarre, but she wasn't going to learn anything from just doing that repeatedly.

After a minute or two of this, Ranma noticed something odd- nothing hurt. She seemed to have taken absolutely no damage from impacting the building. Normally she'd just put that up to her conditioning, but from the height she had fallen Ranma was almost certain she would have taken SOME damage. She sighed. 'Odd… great, another mystery to figure out.'

Suddenly, Ranma heard panicked screams off to her left, her head whipping around at the sound. "What the- great, something else to deal with." The redhead ran towards the sound, arriving at the source in only a few seconds. A young, green haired guy (Green? Yeesh, what had that kid put in his hair?), probably a few years younger than her, was scrambling and cowering at the base of a statue of a dog, evidently being attacked by a couple of… frogs? What was so scary about frogs? Said frogs were admittedly rather large, and had very odd, tattoo like legs, but still…

Regardless, the guy was screaming his head off, apparently scared beyond measure by the odd-looking amphibians. The frogs leaped at him, and the teen scrambled out of the way like the frogs were on fire. The boy was holding what looked like some sort of small circular object in front of himself and wildly gesturing with it, but it didn't seem to be doing anything. Recognizing that he needed help, despite how unnecessary it seemed (and how WEIRD it felt to have to rescue a guy), Ranma ran over to help him out.

As she approached, an odd feeling swept over Ranma, as if she had just dived into water but somehow remained dry. However, the desperately flailing kid was taking up most of her attention right now, so she pushed the oddity to the side and skidded to a halt in front of the screaming teen, placing herself between him and the pair of giant frogs. The boy looked surprised to see her, cutting off his cries of terror.

Both amphibians leaped toward Ranma at the same time, apparently uncaring of the fact that the new girl seemed to be far less easy prey than the boy they had been attacking before. Ranma caught the one that had leaped at her face while simultaneously kicking the other one straight at the side of a nearby building. The frog she had kicked vanished in a burst of what appeared to be static the second it hit the wall's surface.

Ranma gave the frog in her hand a quick glance. Aside from its appearance nothing seemed off about them. Judging from her hand they weren't poisonous, so why was this kid so scared of them?

"Well, you don't seem so- OWWW!" The frog had blown a stream of bubbles at her head that, despite all evidence existing of bubbles NOT being sufficiently solid enough to hurt anything, had each hurt like a hard slap to the face. "HEY! Why you little-" Ranma threw the frog straight up into the air, intending to destroy the thing with a burst of ki.

"MOKO TAKABISHA!"

Nothing happened.

Ranma's eyes grew to the size of saucers. She quickly brought her gaze down and stared at her hand like she had never seen it before. What was going on? Why couldn't she channel her ki? Why-

Her thought were deterred by the sound of a frog smashing into pavement. The moment it hit the ground, the frog disappeared, leaving behind another shred of static, which also disappeared a moment later.

Calming herself, Ranma decided that she would most definitely NOT panic. This was the third or fourth mystery in ten minutes and Ranma would be damned if she didn't figure out this one at the very least.

Closing her eyes, Ranma felt deep down... and found nothing. She was completely bereft of life energy. It was as if nothing had ever been there in the first place.

_How...?_

Coming back to full awareness, Ranma noticed that the boy she had saved was speaking excitedly with a girl with short purple hair, who had seemingly shown up from somewhere while Ranma had been searching for her ki. Both were looking at her wide eyed, and seconds later started to approach her. Ranma couldn't focus on what the two of them were saying, her mind trying but failing to remain calm in the loss of the one thing she knew better than almost anyone. She had to figure this out. Why would her ki suddenly have just _vanished_? Could it be part of whatever this no one touches-no one sees thing? But how could anything just drain all of her ki? Even the moxibustion point had left SOMETHING, and it should have been constantly being produced...

She needed to sit down and figure this out somewhere less crowded, the noise of the crowds was making it impossible to think. Mumbling a half-hearted "You're welcome" to the pair, not having heard them at all but whom she was pretty sure had just thanked her repeatedly, Ranma turned to leave… and stopped.

Wait a moment.

These two could see her.

They could see her, when evidently no one else could. So it stood to reason that they might have some clue what was going on. It was certainly worth a shot, and Ranma had nothing to lose by trying...

The duo of girl and boy had apparently sat back down at the base of the statue and started checking their rather tiny phones due to the lack of response from the redhead. Ranma started to walk over again, grimacing. 'Am I the ONLY person who doesn't own one of these things? I don't think many people in Nerima have them, so why are they so popular here?'

As she walked over, she froze momentarily.

A possible explanation had just occurred. It was a horrible thought, but it seemed to fit all too well her current situation. The mysteries currently plaguing her made all too much sense if...

A grim expression slowly settled across Ranma's face. It didn't explain everything, and it was definitely unpleasant, but it made too much sense not to consider the possibility. If she had no ki, wasn't producing any more, and was still walking around, plus the fact that no one could see or touch her, as well as the apparent lack of damage from hitting the ground...

"Hey…"

The couple looked up to stare at the girl who had saved them from the frogs.

"I'm Ranma Saotome… are we dead?"

wWwWw

AN: Revision three- changed to fit better with how Noise battles work. If something still seems off, trust me, all will be explained later. Also, most definitively NOT an Akane bashing story. I can't explain at this point, but trust me, it's not.


	2. We're All New Here

Shockingly, I do not in fact own Ranma or TWEWY! Why did nobody TELL me?!

yYyYy

The couple gaped at her.

The boy started speaking before the girl could even get her mouth to close. "Um... wow, you caught on way quicker than we did. Yeah, we're dead, apparently. At least, from what we were told and remember."

Ranma's face settled into a scowl. She had been desperately hoping her guess had been wrong. It figured that Akane was the one to do her in, but she'd always thought it would be the food...

Dead. Huh.

This was a new one.

"This can't POSSIBLY be what happens after death." Ranma bitterly muttered to herself. "Running around in a city where no one can see, touch, or hear you, and weird tattoo frogs terrorize you with bubbles? That's DEFINITELY not right. For all I suffered and managed not to snap I should be being rewarded like a freaking SAINT. Guess that explains the total lack of ki though...no life energy if you're _dead_..."

Ignoring Ranma's muttering, the girl, finally having regained her composure, spoke up. "Um, how did you defeat that Noise without a partner?"

Ranma turned to stare at the girl, baffled by that statement but willing to talk about anything if it got her mind off the subject of her recent deceased status. "I take it those frogs were called Noise? Not sure I understand your question. I kicked the one and threw the other high enough that it got smashed by the pavement coming back down. Rather weird that they turned into static, but what do I know about death?"

The girl still looked confused. "But... what pin allows..." She trailed off, apparently too shy to ask her question.

Ranma just shrugged in her best "fake nonchalant" manner, ignoring the cryptic statement and turning back to think over her current situation. She couldn't avoid it, no matter how much she might want too. There was no point in distracting herself from it either- this wasn't a problem she could just hope would go away or grin and bear until the situation defused for the day. This was the most permanent bad situation in existence. Death.

Crap, what was she supposed to do about death? Ranma had never really considered the possibility- she was Ranma Saotome. Death was something that could be outrun, put off, avoided as long as you could beat your opponent... well, maybe not forever, but given that Cologne and Happosai were going on 300 or so, 16 pushing 17 seemed WAY too early to die.

Ranma cursed at the hopelessness of it all. There had to be SOMETHING good she could drag out of this situation, right?! Surely life couldn't be so cruel as to leave her with NOTHING after everything she'd gone through.

Ranma thought through what she knew about ghosts. Well, she had no need for food, right? Okay no, that was actually a bad thing. Ranma rather liked food and was already missing Kasumi's cooking. She could haunt people? But what would be the point? Maybe she could be a benevolent spirit and tell someone to send a message to the Tendo Dojo to tell them what hap- wait, no, she couldn't do anything to the living world. Arrrrghhhhh...

Wait... oh hell, she just HAD to die in girl form didn't she? Stupid tomboy; who knew if she could even change back in the afterlife?! Would hot water just pass through her? It probably would! Did she have to spend the rest of eternity stuck as a girl?! 'No, I'm not even going to consider that possibility. There HAS to be a way to switch back, at least. Surely I can at least catch THAT small a break after death.' Ranma thought to herself.

Thinking it best to learn everything she could about her situation, though still holding back the urge to panic, Ranma turned to question the pair whose names she still didn't know. They were just staring at her now, completely befuddled by her silence. Turning to the boy, she started, trying to sound less... scared, than she actually was. Men weren't supposed to be scared of anything, after all.

"So... what do the dead do? And why do we get attacked by frog things? Because I did NOT sign up for that."

The couple continued to stare. The boy spoke up after a few seconds, a little disturbed. "How are you so... CALM? I freaked out for a good ten minutes when I found out! In fact, that was at least half an hour ago and I'm certainly not CALM about it! We are, basically, in HELL! And you're acting like you just woke up on an unexpected vacation!"

Ranma laughed on the inside. Calm? She only looked calm. She most certainly was not as calm as she may have looked to them. Though, come to think of it, given her daily life this WAS something of a vacation...

Ah! There was something! Dying got rid of a whole lot of unpleasant obligations! No fiancee brigade, no stupid panda, no being force fed poison or being blackmailed or getting trapped in situations entirely not her fault and being expected to fix them, right?

Not that being DEAD was exactly preferable, but given that this was about the only silver lining in sight Ranma decided to cling to that thought like a drowning man to a life preserver.

Grinning at the one good thought and looking totally insane to her two conversation partners, Ranma came up with a perfect answer to the boy's question.

"I know someone who claims to have seen Hell. He knows nothing about Hell. I'VE seen Hell. It involves curses, lots of people teetering on the brink of being batshit insane in one way or another, rampant and sometimes utterly moronic magic, dozens of conflicting and unwanted engagements, and a dash of low level orbit cross-city travel. This ain't Hell kid. It's just my life. Or death, now, I guess."

The gaping was back, this time in slack jawed-raised eyebrow format. Ranma was getting REAL tired of that expression, but then again that claim did deserve such reactions anywhere outside of Nerima. It was time to get the conversation back on track from where she'd derailed it though. "That wasn't an answer to my question ya' know. What do dead people do?"

Now the pair was staring at each other. What was WITH the staring and gaping, didn't these two talk? 'Apparently only when I'm not paying attention...' Ranma mused.

The pair turned back to her. "You don't know about the game?" They said simultaneously.

Ranma had a strong urge to slap her own forehead in exasperation. "Okay, look, can we just assume that I know literally NOTHING about being dead? Because internally I'm kind of freaking out about this, I'd ALREADY had a horrible day prior to smashing into a building, and I only woke up ten minutes ago. So if you'd please just EXPLAIN everything you know to me I would really, REALLY appreciate it." Ranma said through clenched teeth.

The couple backed up at her rather angry sounding words. "Uh, sorry, we just sort of assumed that since you destroyed the Noise... we should really introduce ourselves." The boy gestured to himself. "I'm Shin, and that's Juu. We only woke up about 30 minutes ago, but a 'Reaper' gave us a summary of what's going on."

"He was the one who explained that we were dead..." The girl (apparently named Juu) spoke up again before seemingly shrinking back into herself.

"Right. But, as was explained to me after my freak out, we don't have to stay that way." Shin added. "See, by dying, we've all been automatically entered in to something called 'The Reaper's Game'. We'll get a mission each day that gets texted to us through our cellphones, which is sent by the "Game Master", who I guess is the boss Reaper-"

"Sorry, but you keep saying the word, what's a Reaper?" Ranma cut in. "'Cause judging by how you're using the word I'm gonna assume they ain't literally death manifest."

Shin paused. "They're... er... well, they're not exactly death harbingers, they just sort of run things around here? There's some sort of power structure going on but the guy didn't make it all that clear. The important thing is they can do a lot of crazy things, and they run this game for all us newly dead people. Supposedly, if we get through seven days of it, we get to come back to life!"

Ranma's eyes lit up. Wait, so if she won this "game", that meant... she could cheat death? That changed everything she had been thinking over for the past few minutes. She could go back to... well, okay, she needed to fix her screwed up life when she got back to Nerima, assuming she even managed to get back at all, but at least she'd be alive again. Also assuming that whoever this "Reaper" guy was had been telling the truth, and ALSO assuming that this wasn't all some sort of hallucination brought on by either a major blow to the head or Akane's cooking, hell she could be in a COMA right now for all she actually knew-

She shook her head to rid herself of those depressing thoughts. Thinking like that was not conducive towards coming back to life, and even if there were probably other caveats to this whole "coming back to life" thing, it HAD to be better than being dead. Yeah, she could get out of this. Heck, she'd gotten out of situations way worse before! Death? Hah! Not even death could stop Ranma Saotome!

Slowly building up momentum, Ranma raised her head to the sky with a fist held high. "I'm Ranma Saotome, and I certainly ain't gonna let smashing into a building be my cause of death! That's not NEARLY cool enough to be what finally does me in! It's not impossible to come back from this, and I ain't gonna stop 'til I'm back alive like I should be! Beat a game to come back to life?! That ain't any different than martial arts!"

Ranma smirked, knowing exactly what to follow that statement with.

"...and Ranma Saotome **DON'T** lose."

Now that she had a goal to focus on, Ranma's eyes blazed with determination and re-found confidence. Rounding on Shin, she spoke once more. "So, we don't have to STAY dead if we win? Bring it! I don't care what it takes, I'm comin' back to life if it kills me two times over! What's this mission? Kill some more of those frog things? I can do that easy."

Shin shook his head, rather fascinated at how quickly this girl switched moods. "No... the mission for today was this." He handed Ranma his cell phone, the screen alight with a message.

**Reach 104. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure.**

**PS. Oh, and pick me up some size 6 women's black combat boots on the way. If you don't, you automatically fail.**

**The Reapers**

...

The first mission in a game that would let ghosts return to life was a glorified SHOPPING ERRAND?!

"You've got to be kidding me. These 'Reapers' are having us do their CHORES?" Ranma stood dumbstruck at the lunacy of that. Then she scowled.

"Wait, is this a joke?! An impossible mission?! We can't buy anything now, we're DEAD! We can't talk to anyone or touch anything, nor do we have any money!" Now Ranma was pissed. These "reapers" had given them an impossible mission, given them the hope to live but then pulled it out from under them by-

Juu chose that moment to speak again. "Actually, w-we can still touch things, and people can even still see us... but only if we're in a shop marked with that symbol." She quickly gestured to a nearby jewelry shop marked with an odd black mark on its outside, almost immediately retracting her hand and beginning to fiddle with something in the pocket of her red hoodie.

Ranma's eye twitched. This was... far too reminiscent of Nerima for her liking. Even in death, it seemed people just threw all their problems at her and expected her to fix them... though thankfully this was rather minor in comparison to her daily problems.

Wait, if she could become solid, even temporarily, then that meant... 'I might be able to change back...' Ranma grinned. She may be dead, but aside from that things were actually looking up. "So I guess I need to go steal some boots then?" She asked, addressing the pair facing her.

"Oh no, you're good." The boy said, holding up a bag that had been lying on the ground. "See, we already got them before we came here, and as long as one pair of players finishes, so do all the others. So assuming we don't get erased along the way to the 104 Building, you'll pass too."

His face brightened. "Thanks again for saving us from that by the way, we still haven't gotten the hang of using our psychs."

"Psychs? And what, you mean the frogs? No problem. But how were those gonna 'erase' you?" Ranma questioned.

Shin's mouth settled into a grimace. "Those frogs are called Noise. I don't know how they exist, but along with the Reapers, they essentially try to make you double die. That's what 'Erasure' is- REAL death. I don't know what happens when you get erased and I don't really want to find out. But since later missions might involve killing some Noise, we figured we should practice our psychs a bit since we still had some time left after picking up those boots... as you saw, we're still having trouble with that."

Ranma shivered just a bit. Great, just when she'd thought she couldn't possibly be hurt as just a spirit, it turned out there was an even DEEPER level of death one could end up in. It was probably best to be cautious then... at least these "Noise" didn't seem too tough. All the same, that only answered one question. "Okay, got it, be careful around giant frogs. I still have no idea what these 'Psychs' ar-"

Juu, now staring at her hand, suddenly blanched. "Shin, we've got less than ten minutes left! We need to get to 104 right now!"

Shin looked startled before staring at his hand as well and cursing. "Damn, you're right. ...you're Ranma, right? You coming with us? We could use the help if a Reaper jumps us- unlikely as that is on the first day, we did have to deal with one that demanded Juu put on that hoodie before we could get through. If one of them sends out Noise like we were told they apparently do, we're gonna be in huge trouble."

"Um... sure, I'll come, but why are you guys staring at your..." Ranma trailed off as she stared at her own palm. Seemingly embedded in her right hand were black numbers reading **9:34**, which were slowly ticking down even as she watched. "WHAT THE HELL?!" Ranma yelled.

Shin had already started running, along with Juu. "I told you there was a time limit! Sorry but we can't explain any more right now, and you need to make sure you find a partner!"

"Hey! Wait up!" Ranma took off after them, easily catching up. "Fine, I'll accept that there's now a tattoo of a timer stuck in my hand for now, but what's this about a partner? I get that you guys are paired up, but why do I have ta'? What's it do for me?"

Shin attempted to say something, but since he was running it came out in gasps. "You need a partner- to use psychs! *gasp* But it didn't seem- to help me and Juu- very much earlier! *gasp* Just wait until- we've made it to 104!"

Something about that sentence seemed off to Ranma. It came to her pretty quickly- "Wait, where was Juu fighting? I didn't see her at all..."

Shin just shook his head, breathing too heavily to say much right now. Apparently he was more out of shape than he looked.

Slightly less out of breath, Juu boggled at Ranma's speed. "Woah, you sure are fast..."

"This is actually pretty slow for me, but I take it you two ain't martial artists so I see whatcha mean." Ranma shot back conversationally, cutting in front of the pair and beginning to run backwards. "I mean if I knew where this building was, I could just-" **SMASH**

Having been running backwards, Ranma had hit some sort of barrier, which she had smashed directly into back first. Not that she could have been blamed even if she had been facing forwards, seeing as how the barrier was invisible.

The sound of laughter convinced Ranma to peel her face off the ground. Looking up, she stared into the face of... well actually no, she didn't stare into anyone's face. The man's entire head was covered by his combination of a gray hoodie and a red bandana which hid his lower face. Black, tattoo-like wings extended from his upper back. "Ohhh man, every single player ever, HA! That will never get old..."

Shin and Juu groaned, having caught up after Ranma had crashed. "Ohhhh no, another one of you guys? I thought the first day was supposed to be easy!" Juu said at the loudest volume Ranma had heard her speak at thus far.

The man smirked. Or at least Ranma was pretty sure he did. She could practically FEEL the smugness exuding from this guy. "Sorry kid, what can I say? The new Game Master's a real bitch. Selfish little brat but she sure laid out a gauntlet for you all. Besides, I gotta live too, and if I don't erase anyone I'm dead. You understand."

Ranma stared coldly at man's hood. Brushing herself off, she quickly got to her feet. "So, I take it you're one a' those reaper guys I've been hearing so much about?"

Another twitch of the bandana indicating a smirk. "Got that right girly. I'm a harrier reaper, and it's my job to narrow down the crop of weakass players until only the ones that deserve their reward are left by the end of the week. And seeing as how I can tell you somehow still don't have a partner, I've got a feeling you're gonna be my next prey."

Ranma bristled and cracked her knuckles, a vein that had been getting a lot of use during the past year beginning to once again bulge on her head. This guy was an ass. "Oh, 'Girly' and 'prey' am I? Maybe you should think twice about that..." Ranma rushed forward, intent on, well, not actually hurting the guy given that he hadn't done anything besides mock her, but certainly showing him she was in no way either of those things, maybe throwing a few too-fast-to-see punches at the space in front of his head.

"Ranma, don't!" Shin interjected right as Ranma started in. The martial artist's fist intentionally paused about an inch from the reaper's face as her head swiveled around. "We can't get past that wall unless he chooses to take it down!" Shin finished, seeing that she was listening. Ranma gave a false cocky laugh. "Well then, he can choose to take it down after I've clocked him, right?"

Despite the proximity of Ranma's fist to his head, the reaper barely reacted aside from a humorless chuckle. "Afraid that's not how it works. You've got some spunk, but that's useless without a partner or pins, since you can't erase any Noise. I'm actually kind of impressed you're still here without a partner, usually not having one while in the game usually means automatic erasure after a few minutes. Or did your partner get erased just now? I guess I can see why that might happened, if they had Little Red for a partner..."

Growling, Ranma pulled her fist back. Well, that didn't work, and her anger was rising. She was NOT about to stand here and let herself get mocked by this guy even if they did need him standing for the moment. "Little. RED?! For your information, I haven't had a partner at all, and the second this wall goes down you're goin' down with it! I don't need no partner or pins to kick your ass!"

The reaper ignored her and turned to give another bandana-concealed smirk at Shin and Juu before speaking again. "Well, you better hope that your friends here figured out psychs quick, because if they can't defeat my Noise then you're shit outta luck. You certainly can't do it without either of the two essentials, especially seeing as how you've got less than ten minutes left before you get erased automatically by the time limit expiring. I get more time alive if my Noise defeats you though, so I'd prefer you get erased by me. Are you ready for this?"

"G- give us a minute!" Shin said rather haltingly. Gesturing Ranma over, he brought the group into a sort of huddle to discuss a plan of attack. If it could be called that. "Ranma, Juu and I still haven't figured out psychs, as you may have noticed from our earlier 'fight'. But you took the Noise out no problem; think you can do it again?" Shin whispered.

"Sure thing. I don't know what this guy is goin' on about needin' a partner or pins or whatever these psychs are to beat down frogs, sure didn't seem like I needed any of those to get rid of the others." Ranma whispered back.

Shin smiled. "Great; thanks for doing this Ranma, we owe you."

"Yeah, we definitely do." Juu added.

They broke the huddle and walked back towards the harrier reaper who seemed to be counting seconds via snaps of his fingers. "Five minutes left. Still gonna try? I can summon the Noise at any time."

"Just bring them out so I can get rid of them and be done here." Ranma grumbled.

"Heh, so you're gonna go out by suicide rather than waiting out the timer? Whatever Red, all the better for me."

The harrier reaper snapped his fingers a final time and disappeared. The water-but-not-water feeling swept over Ranma again, and growls sounded from all around her as her opponents appeared. Ranma's eyes widened as she stared down no less than six wolves, their graffiti-like tails waving behind them as they quickly surrounded her.

"O... kay, so this might be a LITTLE tougher than I thought it would be..."

rRrRr

AN: Revised to add a little more depth to Ranma's thought process here, she seemed way to nonchalant about DEATH the first time around. Also, it's never really explained- is the seven minute limit a point at which erasure just "comes" to them, or is it the point at which Noise start to swarm someone, guaranteeing their erasure? Both are supposedly consequences of not having a pact (and Ranma's seeming immunity to this WILL be explained later), but does anyone know what specifically the threat is?


	3. Minimum-Maximum

I don't own Ranma or TWEWY. Nor do I own the joke for this chapter's header. Primarily because there isn't one. I got lazy.

aAaAa

Ranma sized up her opposition warily, the wolves all glaring at her and poised to attack at a moment's notice. Grimacing, Ranma quickly ran through her list of options. 'Okay, they're just wolves, this shouldn't be TOO difficult. Pops and I beat these things up all the time just a year or two ago; this shouldn't be too difficult even with six of them!'

Grinning cockily and cracking her knuckles, Ranma waited for one of the wolves to strike first before remembering that she was on a time limit. Luckily it didn't seem to matter, as at that moment three of the wolves attacked. Unexpectedly, they rocketed towards her at speeds completely unbecoming of normal wolves, catching Ranma off guard. One of them cut a shallow scratch on her arm even as she leapt upwards to avoid them. Landing on a nearby car hood, Ranma wisely decided to reevaluate the wolf pack's threat level. 'I take it back. Fighting wolves sucks no matter where I go.'

These wolves were fast. Not as fast her top speed, even without ki to enhance herself, but fast enough to be a huge pain to take out when there were six of them, especially considering her current lack of life energy. Plus she was on a time limit, and was going to die anyways if she didn't win this quick. Rapidly thinking through her options, Ranma decided on a plan of action.

Taking a deep breath, Ranma put on a cocky smirk and glared at the rapidly regrouping pack of wolves before her face suddenly shifted to shock.

"AHHHH! WHAT IS THAT?!" Ranma pointed behind the pack.

None of them turned around.

Ranma continued to point, adopting a sheepish look after a few moments. 'Well, I can't say I really expected that to work on wolves, but it was at least worth a try...'

One of the wolves ran out of patience and lunged at the car Ranma was still crouching on. In response, Ranma stopped pointing and jumped up a good fifteen feet in the air, allowing the wolf to crash its head into the surprisingly tough windshield. This was followed by the logical conclusion of Ranma returning to Earth and crushing the wolf's body into the front of the car. It disappeared in a burst of static a moment before the rest of the pack lunged at the car.

'Well, that's ONE down I guess...' Ranma thought as she leaped off the vehicle before the canines could maul her. 'But what to do about the rest...' She couldn't very well just leap over and wail on them with her fists, not when they could move like that. Even if she was marginally faster than them, with five of them attacking at once she'd get sliced and diced in seconds. There was no leader to put down to cow the rest into submission either, at least so far as she could tell... not that these were normal wolves to begin with. She desperately needed a ranged attack, but without access to ki what could she do?

Well, there were a couple of bikes...

The wolves had just turned around and begun to sprint towards their red headed target before one of them was smashed into by a bicycle, followed up by a second bicycle and a street sign. The two hit wolves dissipated into static as the three that had managed to avoid the projectiles turned and snarled. Ranma just smirked. 'Three down... and I can definitely deal with just three of these things.'

Off on the sidelines, Shin and Juu were switching between glancing at the battle and glancing at their palms, which were currently at **3:18**. Juu looked worried, and Shin had positioned himself at the edge of the barrier so as to make a sprint as soon as the wall went down. The gray hooded reaper, having reappeared in a shadowed part of the area, was watching the fight intently. He was surprised that the girl he'd expected to be torn to pieces in the first ten seconds had taken down half of the Garage Wolves... and seemingly without the use of psychs. Or a partner for that matter, unless she'd somehow managed to partner with her shadow or a pin. "Never seen anyone try beating on Noise barehanded and just throwing shit at them before... I wouldn't have even thought that would work. This chick is interesting. I almost hope she makes it." The reaper chuckled under his breath.

Unfortunately, Ranma had run out of things to throw, the previously thrown items now being pretty much useless without the element of surprise. The wolves were too quick to be caught by those if they saw them coming. That didn't mean Ranma hadn't thought of another plan though. She charged the noise, and they charged her in turn. Slipping between the head on charges of two of the wolves, Ranma danced around the back of the third one and grabbed its rather bizarre tail in mid stride. Even as she lifted it off the ground and began to twirl the wolf above her head, Ranma frowned as she felt her grip on the tail begin to slacken. "What are these things even MADE of? I can't seem to get a solid hold on it..."

Unable to hold on for more than a few moments, Ranma's grasp on the poor canine was released... only for the force of the spin to send it smashing into the sidewalk at high velocity and returning the creature to static. Ranma grimaced. She had been planning to use the thing like an improvised club to take out the other two, but obviously that wasn't going to work if she couldn't even hold on to them.

"Ah, that was a stupid plan from the start. To hell with it, there's only two of ya left anyways!" Ranma sprinted forward as the wolves turned towards her once again. Before they could even move she was upon them. "KACHU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!" Ranma shouted as she barraged the two remaining wolves in the face. Seconds later they let out pitiful whines as they slumped to the ground and burst into nothingness.

As the adrenaline wore down and Shin and Juu cheered at the win from the sidelines, the hooded reaper stepped out of the shadows and began to speak.

"Well, that sure was a show Red! Can't say I recommend not using psychs, but I guess if it works for you..."

Ranma was less than pleased at his casual sounding tone. Where did he get off, acting as if he hadn't just tried to kill her, and was in fact still GOING to kill her if he didn't get rid of the barrier. "Yeah yeah, whatever, I still don't know what psychs are so I don't really care. Take down the invisi-wall already!"

The reaper smirked under his bandana. She didn't even know what psychs WERE? And she didn't seem to have a partner... this was gonna be good. Definitely THE player to follow if she didn't get erased.

"OY! Stop spacing out and take it down!"

While the reaper had been contemplating this Ranma had moved into his face and was now glaring at him and had grabbed the front of his hoodie. He just laughed and held his hands up in surrender.

"Fine, fine, you win... but before I do, one question. You got a partner?"

"NO! YOU IDIOT, I ALREADY SAID I DIDN'T! NOW TAKE THE WALL DOWN!" Ranma was through with this. There was no way she was going to let this idiot kill her for real by just standing around long enough.

"Please, we're almost out of time!" Juu interjected, having been hopping nervously from one leg to another while she watched the two argue.

Ranma glanced at her palm. **1:02** remaining...

She snarled and slammed the reaper against the side of a building. "Last chance..."

The reaper laughed, despite his current position of being held a foot off the ground by a volatile redhead. "Alright, alright..." He snapped his fingers again and a flash of light momentarily blinded the group. Shin, still waiting at the barrier's, prior threshold, waved his hands in front of him to make sure the wall was gone. As soon as he confirmed it he took off towards 104, shouting a quick "Hurry!" behind him. Juu ran off after him, as Ranma resisted the urge to clock the reaper before dropping him and running off as well. The reaper simply stood and watched them slowly shrink in to the distance before grinning. Setting up a barrier was usually left to the support flunkies, but apparently doing it right in front of the "goal" had been a good idea after all. Sure it was a little unfair, and the bitch GM probably wouldn't like that he hadn't sent any of the fun her way even if she couldn't do anything. But he'd erased three other pairs before those three had even shown up, so his personal quota of life extension was set for the rest of the week, and now he even had someone interesting to keep an eye on. Time to go make some bets with the others before they noticed this little dark horse...

nNnNn

"SAFE!" Ranma yelled out as she skidded into the 104 area. She checked her hand just to make sure, but the clock had stopped at 15 seconds to spare. Just in time. Shin and Juu were right behind her, both of them panting with the effort of running to the building so quickly.

"Phew... made it..." Shin gasped out.

"FINALLY! And here I was beginning to think I wasn't even gonna get my boots..."

The bag Shin still held which contained the combat boots suddenly tore at the handles as a teal and white blur snatched the now torn off lower half of it out of the air. The blur stopped in a crouch about twenty feet away from the trio before straightening up and revealing itself to be a person.

Ranma quickly analyzed the newcomer as she approached the trio. It was a girl, not even out of her teens by the look of it. Her most striking and obvious characteristic was her skin, which was a white so stark it was as if someone had carved her from marble and brought the stone to life. The top half of her hair was covered by a fading yellow bandana, while that which remained uncovered was a white similar in tone to her skin. It fanned out in spikes just past her ears, except for two longer spikes which stuck down past her shoulders. She wore a purple and teal striped sweater, torn... no, sliced at the neck and torso, barely reaching over her chest and revealing a good amount of her midriff. It was obviously too large for her, the sleeves completely covering her hands. A purple and pink striped scarf was wrapped around her neck, which seemed bizarre considering the weather... then again, Ranma couldn't even feel the sun on her skin, so perhaps wherever they were didn't really have weather. Loose beige cargo pants paired with pastel pink shoes served to make the girl's ensemble look even stranger.

Ranma did a double take when she glanced at her face- her eyes were bloodshot, with pure red pupils at their centers. Her mouth was set in an expression akin to that of a lioness who'd just found easy prey, which reminded Ranma to quickly evaluate the girl's potential combat skills. She highly doubted this girl was an ally, especially since she was looking at them like the catch of the day, so it was probably best to be prepared. 'Decent speed... some sort of cutting move, if the bisected bag is any indication. Confident, so she's probably got some sort of special power which makes her thinks she'll win... or she's just stupid, like Kuno. Those pants are concealing how she walks, and I can't see how much muscle she has under those sleeves... damn.' Ranma shook her head. She didn't know enough just from a glance to truly estimate this girl's threat level.

The girl finally decided to address the group, still grinning all the while. "Yo, I'm Entra, resident reaper and current Game Master. Where have you lazy shells been? I was worried I wouldn't even get these when no one showed up..." She held up the now unpacked boots before kicking off her shoes and stepping into her new footwear. "Guess I made it too hot to handle if they only made it here with 15 seconds left... man, of all the groups of players I could have gotten I got the bunch who only BARELY beat the easiest mission." Entra complained out loud, more to herself than the nearby players. "I know the little degrees tend to twiddle their thumbs and freak out on the first day but COME ON. Maybe if I stick less support reapers in the area next time... nah, those shells can sit there stuck at the walls like ice statues for all I care if they can't even get past a bit of chump-grade Noise. If the weaklings ain't erased yet they best be more prepared tomorrow or their asses are gonna get erased faster than a snowball in hell."

Entra continued to talk and sat down to tie up her new boots, while Ranma impatiently tapped her foot, hoping the girl would stop monologuing to herself soon. Meanwhile, Shin and Juu had backed away and were discussing Entra's earlier proclamation amongst themselves in panicked whispers.

"SHE'S the Game Master? Juu, I thought we weren't supposed to see the Game Master until the last day!"

"I guess... she decided to show up early? Or maybe she just wanted to get her boots in person?"

"But this is bad! Like, really, REALLY bad! Neither of us have figured out psychs yet and I doubt even Ranma can take out the boss reaper without a partner! What if she attacks us?!"

"Well... there wouldn't be much point to this game if she could do that on day one, right? Let's just calm down and hope she doesn't, since there's not much we can do even if she does..."

"Yeah, okay... let's just make sure we don't piss her off then. Any idea why she called us shel-"

"Am I gonna have to stand here all day or are ya gonna finish talking to yourself someday soon?"

Shin and Juu's eyes widened. Not two seconds after they had concluded they definitely shouldn't anger this girl...

"Why'd ya even need boots anyways? Don't look like there's anything wrong with those..." Ranma gestured to the discarded pink shoes now lying in the middle of the street. "And you really couldn't think of anything better for us to do than-"

Shin hurriedly attempted to shut Ranma up by slapping a hand over her mouth from behind and dragging her back to where Juu stood before she could make the situation any worse. "Ranma, please stop complaining..." Shin whispered in Ranma's ear. "Who cares about why she wanted the shoes, that's the Game Master... you know... the 'Boss Reaper' who more than likely can permakill us in a few seconds?"

Ranma easily pried Shin's hand off her face before turning around and responding in kind. "Do NOT touch me like that, got it?" That was embarrassing. Evidently she'd been relying too much on being able to sense ki if she hadn't noticed him coming up behind her. "And she don't seem too tough, I bet I can take her out right now if you just-"

"Hehe, you better not little _shells_, I'm kinda highly involved in whether you come back to life or not." The pair swiveled their necks to see that Entra had suddenly cozied up to them and apparently heard their whispered conversation. She was now far too close for comfort. Ranma shot backwards immediately, having had far too much experience in personal space invasion for her liking, especially with enemies. She'd DEFINITELY been relying too much on ki sensing. Shin, however, simply froze, too scared to move.

"Hey, you shouldn't freeze up when someone gets close, who _knows_ what could happen..." Entra whispered almost sensually as she traced an ivory white finger across Shin's neck. "I think I'll call you 'Possum', because it looks like your strategy for avoiding danger is playing dead... would you like to play that part even _better_?" Entra's teeth seemed to lengthen as Shin's brain finally restarted and he scrambled back towards Juu, terrified out of his wits as his imagination ran wild with nightmarish possibilities of what this girl had been about to do. Looking at Juu, Entra spoke again. "And she can be 'Bait'- she doesn't move aside from shivering, she's shrinking in on herself, and she hasn't contributed to this conversation at all! Just like a frozen little worm, impaled on a hook..."

The sweater clad girl turned back towards Ranma, who was still eying her warily in an attempt to glean more information from her posture and movements. "And for your information, Red, those shoes ain't worth _shit_. The color sucks and they remind me of _The System_." Entra's smile faltered, grinding her teeth a bit upon speaking the last two words.

"My name is RANMA, Ranma Saotome, don't you dare call me Red again!" Ranma retorted angrily. Damn it, was was with these reapers associating her with this body's hair color!? Ranma absolutely refused to become known specifically as a girl in the not-exactly afterlife because of her stupid cursed body's hair color.

'Although, I suppose they could be referring to my shirt...' The thought crossed Ranma's mind briefly before she shook it off. 'Whatever, that ain't gonna be a nickname for me, period!' She unconsciously shifted to a battle position- this girl was almost certainly dangerous, so it was best to be prepared.

Entra giggled, rather creepily in the opinion of the only other people there. "Ha ha HA, alright then Red, how about 'Hothead'? It'd suit your flaming idiocy. Maybe 'Brainless'? Don't you get it? What kind of moron deliberately provokes someone 100 degrees above them? I'm not supposed to fight today, but you really make my blood _boil_..." Her teeth once again seemed to lengthen and increase the size of her smile before she chomped down, seemingly attempting to restrain herself.

The redhead remained unperturbed, despite having clearly seen the girl's teeth this time. "Yeah, you ain't the first person I ever heard make creepy threats involving my organs. Hell, you DEFINITELY ain't the first to stake a claim on my 'heart', according to half the people I know it belongs to everyone BUT me. You're gonna have to try harder if you wanna creep me out or put me off guard. And my name is RANMA!"

The snow haired girl sighed, now back in control of herself. "Brag all you want, but if you ain't gonna pick one I'm stickin' with Red. It fits you. Sadly, I better finish up here, I'm expected at a _meeting_." Entra sneered in disgust. "Oh, and no matter what you may think this was an extremely important mission, and if you criticize my instructions again you'll find my new boots rammed so far down your throat that your tongue will be taking up permanent residence in your intestines. But hell, congrats on getting here at all I guess, if nothing else you've provided for MY needs and you saved all the worthless shells who didn't even try to get here. Before I go, I'm curious, what psychs are you three using? Figure I should keep my eye on the only three who actually got he-"

"Okay, WHY do you keep calling us _shells_? And would SOMEBODY tell me what psychs are?!" Ranma yelled the latter part with her head at the sky, frustrated about how everyone aside from her seemed know about whatever these were. Turning back towards Entra, she continued, leveling a glare at the increasingly irritating teen. "Actually, you know what, I got a LOT of questions about this game, and if you're the boss around here then I bet you can answer them."

Entra's Stepford smile returned to her face. "Oh HO, you got some _gall_ mouthing off to a Game Master. I don't particularly WANT to get to that meeting, and I appreciate the ice cold nerve you got, so I'll answer... mm, three things. Don't feel like dragging this out any longer, and I'm gonna get my ass burned if I don't show up at all. I'm sure those two" she nodded towards the couple currently breathing sighs of relief that Ranma's attitude wasn't going to get them killed, "can explain most of this to you anyways. So make em GOOD questions, got it?"

Ranma nodded. "Alright, that sounds fair..." At least she'd get SOME information on her current situation. Even if the source was THIS girl...

The reaper just smirked at her in return. "Alright then. I ain't gonna answer why I call you players shells, you'll find out in time on your own and I ain't spoiling that on the first day. So I'll assume your first question is what psychs are? Hehe..."

Before Ranma could process the first part of that statement Entra's arm suddenly shot to the side in a line. As she completed the motion a barbed wire speared out seemingly from nowhere in an attempt to impale the already backflipping redhead. Ranma landed just out of the range of the wire and glared at the white skinned woman, whose grin seemed to have impossibly gotten even wider than before. "THAT is a psych. Everyone here in the UG uses them, both you players and us reapers. Not sure how you got here without knowing what you were even using, but-" Entra suddenly looked puzzled, as if only just realizing something. "Hey, wait... how are there only three of you? There ain't no three way partnerships, and I'll ice my own head if someone made a pin partnership on the first day, so how come one of you doesn't have one?"

"Yeah, okay, there's my second question. What are partners, how do you get them, and why are they important?" Ranma asked, attempting to cover all bases with this question.

Entra's hand quickly met her forehead. "I said make them GOOD questions... how'd you even make it here? All the same..." Quirking an eyebrow, Entra placed a sleeve-covered hand on her chin as she gained a contemplative expression. "Interesting... hmm, did I forget to have the harriers populate the city with extra Noise? I thought I told them to turn some extra pins-made-Noise loose but I might have forgotten... lazy pieces of..." Entra began muttering to herself rather loudly again, as if deliberately ignoring her present company. "That might explain how she survived this long without a partner, otherwise they'd have been on her in seconds... eh, it's the first day. It can be a LITTLE easier than the others. Hell, considering they only JUST made it I might even have to take it down a notch... damn, and here I thought this would be fun."

Suddenly a pair of fingers snapped in front of Entra's face, who looked up to see the irritated redhead that owned them. "Ya know, I've been told it's polite to not ignore company. I'm starting to see why, since you doing these little self-talks is sort of_ pissing me off_." This girl was really starting to remind Ranma of Kodachi, what with completely stopping conversations just to talk to herself.

Entra looked directly at Ranma, now less than a foot away, and addressed her as if she hadn't moved or said a thing. "You got off easy today Red. Better find yourself a partner tomorrow, or the Noise will swarm you like moths to your flaming head." Ranma backed up, slightly confused but still annoyed.

Another devilish grin wormed its way across Entra's face. "I'll make it simple- for you players, partners are made via a touch of hands, and they're necessary to use psychs. Reapers can bend the rules a little, so we don't necessarily need HUMAN partners, and us higher ups don't necessarily need them at all. But all you really need to know? Without one, Noise will attack you even if you don't start deliberately trying to ice them. Can't even fathom how you got here without going through some of them since, despite what he may think, I KNOW there was a harrier reaper who stationed himself outside this area and started acting like a support one. Which I was perfectly fine with, I certainly ain't gonna avoid any chance to make things more unpredictable and chaotic. But here's my question for you- how'd you get past his Noise without psychs? Don't tell me Possum and Bait over there got you through."

It was Ranma's turn to quirk an eyebrow. "What, those wolves? Pretty sure I didn't use any 'psychs', martial arts was more than enough to take care of 'em. Sure those mutts were a little fast but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle."

Entra looked thoughtful for only a moment before her toothy smile returned. "Ain't supposed to be possible to take out Noise without psychs, but whatever. At least you're interesting... but I suggest you get yourself a partner anyways, because tomorrow the sky will run RED with Noise. I'll be making sure of it. Dunno how you're gonna actually GET a partner now that the game's started and everyone's pretty much taken though; maybe you can ice someone else's partner and then take them for yourself? Whatever, ain't my problem. Now hurry up and ask your third question, and no more about the game. I'm stone-cold bored stupid with explaining things you could learn from pretty much anyone else in the UG. This whole set up sucks anyways so I'd suggest you don't bring it up with me. EVER. So maybe..." Entropy's tongue flicked out to lick her lips. "You should ask about ME."

Ranma was getting stretched past her boiling point by now- it had been heating up quite a bit over the last half hour or so and this encounter was not helping. Her mood had swung from confused, to panicked, determined, anger, and rage, all within a very short time span. Even with the few upsides there were, the stress had only been building. Dying due to an unfairly angry fiancee, being attacked by frogs and wolves, and dealing with an asshole in a hoodie, not even mentioning that calling her "Red" was apparently becoming a trend- it had been a bad day even by Ranma standards. At this point she had no patience left to deal with some egotistical girl with too much power telling to her to kill- sorry, ICE someone with complete nonchalance. Much as Ranma knew that she really shouldn't piss off the "Boss Reaper", she couldn't help herself from shooting off the question that had remained on her mind the entire conversation.

"Gee, alright, if you ain't gonna offer anything helpful then here's a question for ya- how much do your cheeks hurt from constantly being stretched past their natural limit?"

Shin and Juu, completely forgotten by fellow player and Game Master alike, simultaneously choked.

Entra suddenly burst out laughing. "Oh man, you are gonna be FUN to finally ice on the seventh day! You better make it through the week, I cannot WAIT to fight you. I'm gonna blaze through you so hard you'll look like charcoal by the end of..." Entra abruptly paused, looking unhappy. "Too much like Goathead, gonna have to nix that one..." Entra cursed and turned around. "Well, it's been fun, but it's time for you to take a snooze now. See you on day seven, Red."

'A snooze? Wha-' Ranma, Shin and Juu abruptly crumpled to the ground. A cackling Entra walked off, looking forward to the end of the week.

mMmMm

AN:

I'm going with the "noise swarm the players without partners" assumption of the seven minute limit aftermath for now. Correct me if it was explicitly stated somewhere.

You should already have noticed what may seem like a major plothole- it's not. Unless you're thinking of something different.

For those not satisfied by a description, a picture of Entra (drawn by an acquaintance/friend) can be viewed here: dragonmanx. deviantart art/Request-stream-8000-354077036. It is slightly spoilery as to what she uses for her noise form abilities, so only view if you don't care about that. Then again, she sort of spoiled them all on her own, didn't she? Ah, the flaw of the passionate.


	4. Familiar Ground

The disclaimer for this chapter has died. Sadly, as it has no soul, it will not be coming back via The Reaper's Game. If you try to sue me over this fanfic then you probably have no soul either.

aAaAa

_Eurrrrrrghhhhhh..._

A pigtail slowly rose from the ground, waving back and forth like a crimson snake as Ranma rubbed the sides of her head in an attempt to assuage a splitting headache.

"Why the hell am I in the middle of the street again... crazy ice girl... grahhhhhh..."

The frustrated martial artist surveyed her surroundings with gradually dying annoyance. Ice girl was long gone and she was back underneath what seemed to be the same building she crashed into before. In fact, looking up, she could just barely see the part of the building she'd smashed in on her way here. Looked like they were reconstructing it now... hey, wait, the sun looked like it was back in the same position it had been yesterday morning...

'Have I been asleep for an entire day?' the redhead wondered. How had they kept her under that long? Largely due to the constant threat of being thrown out the window if she didn't wake up before the panda, Ranma's internal clock was very finely tuned, and should have roused her from slumber about an hour ago given the position of the sun.

Then again, dying certainly could have thrown it off. It wasn't as if there had been many studies on the effects of death on a person's mental representation of time. 'I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do now...' Ranma mused.

Sitting back down in a meditative position, the currently-dead aquatranssexual took stock of her situation. Okay. So, she was dead, and stuck in a death game. If she won, she could come back to life. One apparently wins the game by completing a bunch of errands for the crazy pale girl running it. So, number one goal- win the game.

There were also animal things called Noise that looked like living tattoos, and they each seemed to have their own weird abilities that made killing... er, dissolving them difficult. They were in the game to... what, harass the dead people in general? Ranma thought it over. Yeah, from what she'd seen that seemed like something smiley girl would do. She was definitely sadiskick, or whatever the word was. Sadischick? Something like that.

Ranma shook her head and got back to her main train of thought. There were also jerks called reapers that liked to sic Noise on you and put up barriers, all of whom may or may not work for Smiley? It was probably best to avoid them if at all possible.

'Now what was that stuff little miss "master" told me?' Well, Entra's explanation on "psychs" hadn't helped much. The only example Ranma had seen thus far was a length of barbed wire that had come out of absolutely nowhere and tried to impale her. Didn't exactly narrow down what psychs WERE, per say. Presumably they were supposed to be used to fight the Noise?

Well, martial arts seemed to work fine on them, so evidently Ranma didn't need them. Oh, and she was supposed to get a "partner"...

"Feh, because my previous "team ups" have gone so well. I think I'll take the Noise over that." Ranma frowned. Smiley girl had said something about the Noise swarming her if she didn't grab a partner as soon as possible, so she might HAVE to deal with a ton of Noise if she didn't partner up with someone. She certainly wasn't going to permakill/erase anyone to get her own partner (who'd probably and rightfully despise her for doing something like that anyways), so it was looking like she didn't have much choice right now anyways... well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

'Lessee... that's pretty much it... aside from making sure the curse is still working, of course.' That stopped Ranma short. In addition to thinking over everything that had happened, she really needed to list out her actual priorities too, one of which was definitely getting some hot water. Standing up and cracking her back, Ranma decided to walk while thinking and hope she happened upon a shop. No reason she couldn't multitask.

Speaking aloud this time, Ranma went over her to do list. "Okay, step one- get some hot water. No way am I spending even a week as a girl if I don't have too." Ranma refused to think about the possibility her mind was whispering that dying as a girl might have stuck her as a girl for the moment. Nope. Not possible.

"Step two... ask someone where exactly I am. What city even IS this?" Ranma had seen a lot of cities before, but usually they didn't have buildings this... tall. Genma had tended to avoid areas he couldn't get out of quickly, and that had applied to most inner city areas more than a mile in. Ranma had only seen buildings this large a handful of times before, and never had she been right in the thick of them. This was going to make roof hopping rather difficult.

"Step three... grab one of the jerks in the hoodies, or better yet Smiley herself, and get them to spill on anything ELSE this game has lying in wait." Ranma had been tricked enough by this point to know that there was always SOMETHING being held back from you. Some "surprise" waiting to be shown, some trap just waiting to unfold. There was almost no chance they'd told her everything about this "game", and she intended to resolve that problem before disaster struck like it usually did.

There was also the matter of the conversation she'd had with the "Game Master" yesterday. Ranma had a feeling a lot of it would have made more sense if she'd had the proper context. "UG", a "sky filled with Noise" even though Noise were ground based from what she'd seen thus far, "shells"... none of those made any sort of sense to her. Entra herself had been pretty bizarre even discounting what she'd said, what with... what was that word for people with completely white skin and hair, albedo? Her albedo appearance and that constant "devilbeast that ate the canary" grin. Come to think of it, what had been up with those weird occasional references to cold and heat? Every time Entra had slipped one into the conversation it had been like she'd had to twist her sentences around to accommodate them. Why would anyone deliberately slip pointless temperature references into their speech, especially when it appeared she was really having to work at it to do so? Ranma frowned. Yeah, this was a weirdo on par with most of her rivals, at least. Given what Shin and Juu had said she was probably just as dangerous as them too- probably even more so given how casual she'd been about telling Ranma to kill someone off for her own sake.

Wonderful.

Ranma continued to walk through people, barely noticing she was so caught up in her thoughts. She supposed she should complete the mission today too after she grabbed some water, since while there were apparently others in this game that could clear it also, they either had absolutely no idea what they were doing yesterday or had started much farther away from the goal than Ranma had. That or those boots could only be bought at a store nowhere near the goal, and it had just taken that long to make a return trip... or maybe they'd had no money to buy the boots with? Ranma shook her head. The reasoning didn't matter, there was no way she could trust a bunch of strangers to get something done for her, not when her life was on the line. She just had to-

"Ow!"

Ranma looked down at her hand, abruptly jolted from her thoughts by the mission clock's appearance on her palm.

"Well, that's great, so now I have to-"

Suddenly Ranma realized that she had a major problem. Namely, that she didn't have a cell phone.

"...well that's just stupid." Ranma fumed at the injustice of seemingly screwing over everyone that didn't have a cell phone on them when they died. That... really didn't make sense. What use did SHE have for a cell phone? In fact, it struck Ranma as extremely unlikely that everyone else in the game would have one. Sure they were useful for getting help in emergencies, but all they did aside from that was let people bother you even when AWAY from you and maybe tell the time, IF that. They were also huge, clunky, and hard to keep on your person without a bag. Useless.

Come to think of it... she'd been a bit overwhelmed with everything else yesterday, but Shin and Juu's phones, and for that matter the phone of the girl she'd poked holes through yesterday, had looked way more advanced than anything Ranma had ever seen before. She really didn't know much about technology, but... looking around, Ranma realized the people on the street were using the same, miniature kind that Shin had shown her. They were easily recognizable as phones, what with everyone holding them to their head and talking, not to mention the number pads she could see, but Ranma was pretty sure she'd never seen that sort of phone back in Nerima. Apparently this city was also further ahead on the technology curve than most places she'd been. Shin had also used the word "texted"... what was that even supposed to mean?

Ranma shook her head. There was no point thinking about it now when there was no one around to answer such questions. She supposed she'd have to go find someone else playing the game who DID have a cell phone then... hot water first though.

Looking up to see where her aimless walking had taken her, Ranma found herself walking right past an absolutely enormous building, with signs outside advertising it as...

"Cool, a mall? There is no WAY they don't have hot water in there."

Almost giggling with glee, Ranma ran in and sprang into the first store she saw... or at least tried too. Before she could actually make it inside what looked to be a pharmacy, Ranma caromed off a barrier similar to the kind she had seen use yesterday to block the path.

Staring in disbelief from her current position on the floor, Ranma's expression quickly soured. "Oh yeah, I forgot..." she muttered angrily, flopping down on the floor while people obliviously stepped through her. "No entering shops unless they've got the stupid squiggly symbol on 'em. Great..." Those walls HURT. They seemed to completely ignore any physical resistance and send the shock of hitting them straight to the... soul? Spirit? Ranma wasn't sure, but she did know that had hurt way more than a normal wall would have. In fact, a normal one she could have plowed through with just a little more effort than Ryouga or Shampoo. Maybe she could circumvent-

'Wait, is that...'

There, above a nearby doorframe to what looked to be a food shop, was a small, barely visible tattoo, identical in all but size to the one Shin had pointed out yesterday.

'Sneaky bastards...' Ranma thought to herself. Even someone with environmental awareness on par with hers would have had a hard time seeing that, let alone the average shmuck who just happened to get trapped in this demented (not to mention utterly ridiculous) game.

Entering the store with no problems, Ranma looked around for a restroom she could use to return to male form. However, the store didn't seem to have any doors besides the one she'd come in from. Ranma frowned. There went Plan A. On to plan B- ask the clerk, because logically they couldn't possibly be stuck in this store without a bathroom all day.

Banzai Ayanokoji looked up from his paper to see a pretty, red haired girl walking towards him. He put on a less stern expression before she made it to him; never hurt to be nice to the customers, at least for the pretty ones. She was a bit young to be buying food from here though, unless she was picking it up for someone else. "Is there something I can do for you, young lady?"

Suppressing an instinctual snarl at the "young lady" part, Ranma gave a weak smile. "Hello kind sir, is there a restroom in back I could use, please?" she asked respectfully, hoping that would win her some points with this guy. From what she could tell of his body language, he was one of those "stern, gruff old man" types that never seemed to think you were being reverent enough of their age, so it was probably for the best if she didn't tick him off with a greeting of "Hey old timer, got a bathroom back there I could use?"

The shopkeeper shook his head. "Yes, there's one in the back, but I'm afraid I can't really let you use it miss. Employees only. Try the pharmacy next door, I believe they have some public toilets."

Ranma's plastered on grin wavered a little, already knowing she couldn't possibly do that. "Oh... are you suuuure you can't make an exception just this once? _Pleeeease_?" the redhead fake-pleaded, switching from "respectful" to "kicked puppy" in a matter of seconds. Fake tears brimming at the edges of huge, puppy dog eyes, combined with a quivering lip and some withdrawn body language- Ranma had this scam down to a fine art.

Banzai scowled. As if he hadn't seen young girls try THAT kind of maneuver before. He'd been tricked by his wife enough times to know when to look away. Returning to his paper, the old man hid his face before answering. "No. This isn't a place for kids, girl. Go somewhere else."

Ranma scowled, dropping her cutesy act. Apparently this oldster was wise to that sort of trick. But for all she knew this could be the only store around with that tattoo, and she didn't really want to go searching the mall, especially given her current time limit...

Well, one last try, and if that didn't work she'd just vault over the counter and use the bathroom before he could possibly stop her. "Well then, in that case could I please have some hot water, sir?"

The shopkeeper was a bit befuddled at this request. "What do you need hot water for exactly? There's no tea shop around here."

"Er... I can't really explain..." Ranma knew Nerima was sort of an oddity when it came to just accepting magic as a part of life. In other places, like the villages Genma had made them travel through on their way back from China and the various locales he'd ended up traveling to via mallet, the locals tended to call her crazy if she told them she wanted the hot water so she could change back into a guy. Ranma sincerely doubted she'd get anything out of this guy if she told him WHY she needed it. The "Vault, Splash, and Run" plan was looking more and more likely like her best course of action right now.

"Er... how about, if you get me some, I can show you why I need it." Ranma eventually stuttered out, mentally sighing. This was getting tiresome. What exactly was the big deal about getting someone some water?

Banzai's eyebrows narrowed. She wouldn't tell him why she needed it... and while he wasn't one to poke into other people's business, whatever she needed it for almost certainly wasn't something good if she couldn't even speak it aloud. Maybe she was going to throw it all over the food or something? This girl needed to leave. "If you want a glass of hot water it'll cost you 5000 yen. Take it or leave it." If that didn't drive her off he'd just stop talking to her at all; she'd have to leave eventually.

Ranma gaped, aware that it was a ploy to make her leave but incredulous at the price the man had just listed all the same. Yeah, forget this guy. "Okay, sure. I'll pay that."

Banzai looked up in disbelief. "You're willing to pay 5000 yen for wa-"

Smoothly vaulting over the counter past a startled Banzai, Ranma sprinted through the back of the store towards the easily spotted restroom with Banzai in hot... er, warm... uh... perhaps lukewarm pursuit. Give him a break, he's old.

Locking herself in, Ranma turned on the sink and splashed herself the moment the water got warm. Relief flooded through him as his hair returned to black and his body grew in height. It appeared dying did not lock the curse as he had originally feared.

He exited the room to the sight of a raging Banzai, which quickly turned from anger to puzzlement as he realized this was not the girl who he'd just chased back here. Whoever this kid was didn't have any right being here either, but he'd deal with him after the girl. "Oy, whoever you are, did a red haired girl just run in there?"

Grinning, Ranma decided to reply truthfully. "Yep, that was me. S'what I needed the hot water for old man. Bye now!" Running back the way he'd come, Ranma returned to the storefront and turned to seeing a huffing and puffing old man run/jog in, confusion and anger written on his face.

Thinking of the price the old guy had named for water, the now male Ranma began rifling through his pockets. Just how much DID he have anyways? He had said yesterday that he had no money to buy the boots with, but he hadn't actually checked. Maybe- nope, Nabiki had frisked all of it at some point. He was totally broke. Wait, no, there was something-

Turning towards Banzai, Ranma smirked, pulling the black pin from yesterday out of his pocket and holding it up for Banzai to see. "Just so ya' know, this is the only thing I got in my pockets. All my yen's been long since taken or stolen, so if you thought for even a second-"

Suddenly, the world froze, surroundings fading into nothingness. While the people remained, they had seemingly stopped in place. Or, at least, were moving very slowly, as people's legs still seemed to be moving by the tiniest amount towards destinations that didn't seem to exist anymore. Sound was muted, muffled as if coming through a wall before reaching Ranma's ears. And there were giant floating red symbols floating in the sky.

Ranma's first thoughts at these new developments could be boiled down to a single sentence-

'...Am I _ever_ gonna get a break?!'

iIiIi

AN: Slight revision for better prose.

A bit short but I think that's a good place to stop. Also, if you prefer, the last sentence can be exchanged with "Awwwww shit.".

So, curse problem- solved! Reapers Game problem(s)- still huge, numerous, and Ranma doesn't even know the half of them yet. Hehehe...

Yeah, this entire chapter was basically just getting Ranma's take on the situation s/he is currently faced with and the activation of the player pin. The discovery that the curse isn't locked is negligible, could've been done any time really. But apparently even small stories like this one get complaints about Ranma being "locked" when that's never been stated as truth so much as speculation, and this was really as good a time as any to remedy that. Besides, Ranma doesn't want to spend much time in his girl form anyways, so it made enough sense to do this little scene now.

All other questions may or may not be handled next chapter. I did sort of lie about there being more Ranma stuff this chapter, and may have to continue doing so for now, as the setup for this may be a bit different from what you're thinking... but I have thought at least most of everything out. So, next chapter will be more plot, and hopefully some explanation.

Oh, and someone pointed out that the story really needs more of a hook than "Ranma ends up in the Reaper's Game"- yep, you're right. And there is one. We're getting there, sorry it's taking so long. I am actually attempting to do more than that above description! Honest! I have a five page planning document that's only getting larger! Just wait!


	5. Ticking Clock

I do not own Ranma. You do not own Ranma. According to most of the people in the series Ranma HIMSELF does not own Ranma. Look, the subject of who owns Ranma is in dispute, alright?

TWEWY, on the other hand, just plain ain't mine. As if that was ever in question.

AN: The story underwent some rewriting to make it read a little better, so a reread is recommended. We aren't that far in yet; it won't take too long...

sSsSs

The pigtailed boy leapt back through the blue area, putting as much distance as he could between the floating red symbols and himself. Shoving the pin back in his pocket, Ranma landed in a battle ready position and prepared himself for the worst.

The symbols... just sort of floated.

Ranma waited, but after a minute or two of nothing he couldn't take it anymore and faked a dropping of his guard, just to see if the things would react. They didn't, so Ranma relaxed... partially. The hovering red and black tattoos weren't doing anything, which was nice and all, but there was no way he could trust they'd stay that way. This was undoubtedly another weird "game" thing he knew nothing about and hadn't been explained. So... what was he supposed to do here, besides hopefully get out?

Well, he didn't have any "psychs", so he was going to have to hope those weren't needed here. He wasn't going to try touching the things either, since they'd probably do... SOMETHING bad if he did. Burn him, attack him, eat him- he needed to expect the worst. He had no ranged attacks now that he had no ki, so what did he have left?

Ranma looked around the now blue environment. Maybe there was something he could use here? If there was, it was well hidden, Ranma could see nothing but blueness, red floating tattoo symbol things, and very, VERY slowly moving people outside where the door of the store used to be.

_Ugh, these new shoes! My heels are killing me... The fronts are really long, so I bought a size smaller than usual. Urg, bad idea._

"...what the...?" Ranma momentarily forgot about his current predicament due to what seemed to be someone's voice sounding inside his head. All he had been doing was staring at some woman whose expression had been caught in a rather hilarious position, somewhere between nervousness and constipation. And he was pretty sure he had just heard her thoughts.

To test this hypothesis, he stared intently at a random girl who he was pretty sure had been blocked out of view by the store's wall a few minutes ago.

_My Pegaso room is starting to overflow. Maybe it's time to build another extension for closet space...  
><em>

Ranma blankly stared off into the blue abyss. "Yep, I'm reading people's minds. This game is insane."

Well, that was a cool ability, but he'd gladly take getting back to the city he'd been in over wherever he was now, even if he could hear people's thoughts here.

Though, maybe if someone had the city's name on the brain...

Ranma looked over a few more people, finding thoughts on fashion, dating, and something called Tin Pin before eventually finding what he wanted.

_Shibuya's so crowded._

_I wish I could throw on some ninja garb and just leap from rooftop to rooftop._

_Aw, but I already wore mine on Tuesday..._

Ranma grinned a bit at that one. He could relate. In fact he had to go try that when he got out of here- hopefully the roofs of buildings weren't blocked the way that store had been.

Still, at least this had been helpful, he knew where he was now. Shibuya... well, he'd never been here, and he was pretty sure he'd only heard the name once or twice in passing, but once he was back to life he'd at least be able to figure out which way he should be heading to get back to Nerima.

That didn't help him get out of here though. And he didn't really want to touch those red things... maybe he could get out of here without actually doing anything to the symbols? Boy, wouldn't that be a surprise, getting somewhere WITHOUT fighting? It was practically an impossibility, at least in Ranma's experience.

Ranma mulled his predicament over. "Okay, even in a game THIS ridiculous, there has to be some sorta reason I'm here. I didn't see any of those reaper guys so I don't think it was them, unless my situational awareness is really just THAT out of shape without ki sensing. No one else was here except the old guy, who was still in the process of gapin' at me. So how did I get..."

He suddenly groaned at the obviousness of it all. Fishing the black pin out of his pocket, Ranma resisted the urge to smack himself for not realizing a few minutes ago. He'd been holding this little trinket and talking about it right before he ended up here. It was probably what got him here, and thus likely his best chance at getting out.

"Hmm, so how do I use this...?" All he'd done the first time was hold it up and look at it, so...

Ranma concentrated on the pin, and the world fell back into motion and color. Banzai was still panting at the counter, looking at him.

"Huh. Well, that was about par for the course." Ranma said to himself as he sprinted out the door. He'd deal with this after he got out of range of the confused and likely angry store owner.

Banzai gaped as he suddenly lost track of the raven haired teen just a second after he ran out the entrance. Had... had that boy just disappeared? This wasn't the first time someone had seemingly vanished after exiting his store, but he'd brushed it off the other few times as just losing them in the crowd. However, the crowd was light today; he had clearly seen that boy run out and disappear just a few yards away... and that boy had been a girl a few minutes ago... maybe it was time to get a new location. That, or an eye exam.

nNnNn

Outside the shopping center, Ranma contemplated this new development, looking at the pin from every angle. He was taking care to not examine it TOO hard, lest he get sucked in to the blue world and be unable to get out this time. It seemed like an ordinary pin, albeit with a weird, stylized design, that Ranma now recognized as very similar to the style of the emblems he'd seen adorning the shops from yesterday and just now, as well as the red and black things. Yep, this was definitely part of the "game"- as if there had been any doubt about that.

"Hmm... guess I should just get rid of this." Ranma said to himself. "This game thing is complex enough without adding THIS to it."

However, just before Ranma was about to chuck the pin away, a pair of thoughts occurred. The first was that this was possibly one of those "psychs" he'd had to hear about all of yesterday. It probably wasn't the best idea to throw it away, even if he didn't think he'd need it. Maybe someone else could use it, even if he didn't want it- next time he saw Shin or Juu, he could ask them.

The second was that despite the constant presence of the weird floaty symbol things, the pin had let him read minds. And also basically stopped time. No matter what he thought of this game, it wouldn't be smart to toss an item that granted an ability like that. But if he wanted to use that, he'd have to practice and make sure he could use it correctly...

Ranma shrugged and re-pocketed the pin. He could practice whatever this was later if he wanted. For now, he needed to find someone else that was playing who could tell him what the today's mission was. Hopefully it wasn't more chores.

oOoOo

**Fifteen minutes ago...**

Elsewhere, a purple haired girl in a red hoodie and a green haired boy with a frustrated expression were discussing current events. They had just woken up outside what looked to be a concert hall, and since the mission wasn't here yet they had time to discuss amongst themselves.

"...yes, Juu, I know we should probably see if we can find Ranma again, but we also need to learn how to fend for ourselves. We can't rely on her forever, right?"

The purple hair and red hood covered Juu's entire face, but Shin could still recognize the shaky nod he received. "Glad you agree. Come on, brighten up! Let's see if we can get these stupid pins to work. The ones we got to begin with are supposed to be ones we can definitely use, aren't they? So it must just be that we're doing something wrong. Let's go fight a test battle or two, then when it shows up we can get to the mission and finding Ranma."

Looking away for a moment, Shin allowed himself a brief frown. Damn, she still didn't remember... and that was probably how it was going to stay assuming the info that reaper had given them yesterday was correct. This was harder than he'd thought it would be...

A sharp pain flashed on his hand. Grimacing and holding it up, Shin could see that the mission clock had started up again. "Guess it's here..." he mumbled as he took out his phone. "Well, we can still practice, we've got a while after a-"

Shin's face froze in disbelief, paling at what he was reading in the new text message. This was...! They were just Normal players...! They couldn't...!

He turned to see Juu staring at her phone in a similar manner, trembling like a leaf in the wind. "S-shin, are you sure we can't..." she trailed off.

Shin shook his head. "Juu, I take it back. You're right, let's go find Ranma first."

**Eliminate five teams of Noise. No psychs allowed. You have three hours. Fail and get iced.**

**The Reapers**

tTtTt

"...ya know, you wouldn't think it'd be too hard to find people fighting weird tattoo animals in the street that no one else can see." Ranma grumbled. Maybe that wasn't as regular a thing around here as yesterday had seemed to indicate. He'd been walking around for at least twenty minutes and hadn't found anyone else that could see him. Attempting to roof hop hadn't worked- without ki he could still jump a good amount upward, but it wasn't even high enough to get on a roof in Nerima, let alone the buildings here. So he was stuck on the ground, trying to find another player and growing less and less hopeful that this plan would work by the minute. He'd started running after the first five minutes, and yelled if there was anyone who could see or hear him a good dozen times, but nope. Nothing. He hadn't even found one of those reaper guys to demand info from. The clock was ticking away...

Well, maybe it was time to try practicing that pin thing. Couldn't hurt to have a "psych", certainly, and running around had just led him in circles and into the occasional wall. Maybe if he waited around here long enough someone would find him? He was tired of running in to walls. Those things were _painful_. He needed to figure out a way to know where those were BEFORE running into them.

Ranma took out the pin again. It had been pretty easy to activate the first time... all he had to was was look at it and concentrate. And he'd gotten back pretty easily last time, so it seemed unlikely he would get trapped there...

A few seconds later, the world had dropped away again, replaced by the blue void, its ground filled with very slow people and its sky filled with glyphs.

"Alright, let's see..." Ranma tried a few basic katas and found no problems in performance. Looked like he could still function at full strength and speed (well, full minus ki) even when everything else was slowed down. He did seem to be unable to move past a certain point, though it was more like sliding off a certain perimeter than hitting a wall... then again, he could be running in to a building for all he knew, given that he couldn't see any of the actual structures. It would probably be best to get around without having this on so he could see where he was going.

Now, he just needed something to fight and see if they were slowed down by this place...

He stared warily up at the symbol-laden sky. Those were PROBABLY some sort of enemy... but could he even fight those? They looked two-dimensional.

Only one way to find out...

With a powerful kick off the ground, Ranma was in the air and next to a symbol that looked like... honestly he had no idea, it was completely alien in shape. 'Here goes nothing!' Ranma thought to himself as he flipped and kicked the floating glyph.

Suddenly there was a flash of white, and the odd water like feeling swept over Ranma again as he found himself standing back on the street, the blue void gone. Three of the wolves from yesterday were standing around him, looking almost confusedly at the pigtailed boy.

'Well, that explains what the tattoos are...' Ranma mentally groused. So that was what Smiley had meant by "a sky filled with Noise". Figured that he'd get wolves instead of the easy to beat frogs. He quickly sprang out of the center of the wolves and moved in to an attack stance.

The wolves did not move.

_ What is going on?_

_Why is this one attacking?_

_This one has no reason to fight._

_We have no reason to fight._

_This one is not like the ones who hurt us. _

__We must multiply. We must eat.__

__We should not eat this one.__

_This one and we should not fight._

Ranma looked on with an expression of bafflement as the wolves started walking in the opposite direction, ignoring him completely. "Uh..." Well that was unexpected. From what he'd seen so far these things just attacked whoever they saw, so why not now? Did they just think he was too strong for them? The ones from yesterday had jumped at him without a second thought... though they had been sent out by that reaper guy, so maybe that was a special case.

The martial artist abandoned his position and rubbed the back of his head, a bit indecisive about what to do. "Huh... seems wrong to attack something that ain't attackin' me first..." It felt too much like he was taking on the role of his rivals or fiancees back in Nerima for his taste, even when the opponent was a pack of wolves.

Well, he didn't really need to attack them per say, but he at least needed to test out if the time slow thing worked on these things. There was no point to practicing with this "psych" if it didn't do anything.

Ranma took the pin out of the pocket he'd shoved it in while practicing earlier. Concentrate, and...

Nothing. No void, no symbols, no time slowing down.

"Figures..." Ranma sighed, not entirely surprised. It had been entirely too good to be true. The thing didn't work during fights, which was one of the only times he could think of where decelerating time would be useful, at least while he was in this game. Probably didn't work on those reaper guys either.

He turned his attention away from the pin. The wolves were gone. Looked like he didn't need to fight them after all.

It appeared that the pin was... well, not useless, but far less useful than he'd thought it might have the potential to be. Maybe it would come in handy later for the mind reading thing, but since it apparently stopped working in battle its uses right now were rather limited. Mind reading was cool and all, but he really didn't need to hear any more about dating and fashion right now. Or ever.

Ranma sighed. Ah well, he'd been doing fine without this thing up until now anyways. Not a big deal.

Although, there was still no one around that could see him...

'Screw it, I need something to eat.' Ranma thought as his stomach grumbled. He checked his hand. 140 minutes. Hopefully that would be enough time to find someone else, get the mission, and get a meal.

Trying to resign himself to the fact that he'd have to take a page out of his father's book and steal a bite to eat, Ranma went off looking for a restaurant. It was only about a minute before he found one- a ramen cafe, funnily enough. By then Ranma had decided that his current situation more than warranted a little thievery. He wasn't going to fight well if he didn't eat, and if he didn't fight well he was going to die permanently. Why dead people still needed food Ranma wasn't sure- maybe it was just for the people stuck in this not-exactly-limbo?

The restaurant was empty aside from a guy with ridiculous orange hair sitting at a table with a girl with equally absurd pink hair, though hers was only weird in color, not style like that of the guy she was with. It wasn't unexpected that the number of restaurant goers was scarce really, by the clock on the wall it wasn't even ten in the morning yet.

Still, Ranma hadn't had anything to eat all of yesterday- in fact the entire reason he was in this mess was because he'd refused to eat Akane's special "surprise" breakfast. Surprise in this case being the same sort of surprise one would experience at having an active bomb thrust under their nose and being expected to act like it was a present. Without being allowed to deactivate it. Since he'd chosen hunger over near-to-actual poison, food was something Ranma was in sore need of right now.

Behind the order counter, a woman with shoulder length lavender hair ('Does EVERYONE in this city have weirdly colored hair?' Ranma thought to himself) was working at a stove, her back turned to the cafe as she focused intently on whatever she was cooking. Further inside the cooking area Ranma could see a man with his back to the counter washing dishes, his black hair nearly twice as long as the woman's. Presumably the woman was also the one who took orders, as Ranma couldn't see anyone else near the front. He waited a minute or so, during which she didn't notice him at all, before clearing his throat to get her attention.

The woman finally realized Ranma was there and turned to greet him. "Hmm? Oh, hello valued customer! May I help you?"

Ranma's thought process abruptly screeched to a halt as he got a glimpse of the woman's face. '_No way..._' The man in the back turned around, having finished the dishes, letting Ranma see his face as well.

It was Shampoo and Mousse... at least twenty years older than they should have been.

iIiIi

Ranma didn't disappear immediately after exiting the store because the decal has a radial effect, more of a "sphere of influence" sort of deal than "this particular room is special" one. At least, that's how it works according to the wiki.

I'm interested to see what kind of reviews this chapter garners. I expect there will at least be some guesses as to what's going on. I don't... THINK anyone will guess everything, at least not down to every last detail, but you may have gathered at least a few things from the hints that have been popping up...


	6. Time Was Running and I Guess I Ran Out

I don't own Ranma or TWEWY. In fact, I don't even own this fanfic. It's actually just my attempt at forming words out of the keyboard smashes made by my angry eleven year old brother. Amazing how coherent it is, huh? This should account for any lackings of the story. Don't blame me, blame him! I think it's pretty good for random key smashes! Would you really pick on the accidental writing of an eleven year old?

You would? Oh. Well then, enjoy the fic, jackass.

nNnNn

Ranma couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He was having trouble even _thinking_ given what he was looking at. This just wasn't possible. It had to be their relatives or something... Shampoo's mom! Yeah, that was it, this was probably Shampoo's mom... and Mousse's dad. Or something like that. Who were in Japan, running a noodle shop? Wait, that didn't make any sense.

"Do you need some time to think over your order, sir?" the purple haired woman asked innocently.

Well, it certainly SOUNDED like Shampoo. Her voice was a dead ringer for the amorous Amazon, even if her Japanese was far better.

"Sir? Sir?" the woman repeated.

"Dah... uh... that is, I..." Ranma's thought process tripped over itself as it struggled to figure out what to ask the woman. He couldn't just come out and ask her, could he? Best to sort of lead into the question of her identity in case he was horribly mistaken, as he was really hoping. "Er, sorry, it's just... you look really familiar, and so does the man back there..."

"Oh?" the woman looked somewhat surprised. "That's funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you..."

Ranma's heart skipped a beat. If this really was Shampoo, she didn't fully remember him...

"C-could you call the man in the back over, please? See if he recognizes me?"

"Ah..." The restaurant owner wasn't quite sure what to say to this, but saw no reason not to acquiesce. "Certainly, sir. Husband! Could you come over here please? Someone is asking for you!" she called to the black haired man. Ranma managed to contain his initial reaction to the "husband" part, resolving to think about it later.

"Coming!" The man in question walked from the back to the counter. Same coke bottle glasses, same facial structure, same hair... yeah, that was almost certainly Mousse. Shit. But there was still hope, he hadn't actually asked their names yet, and neither of them were wearing nametags. It could still be that this wasn't in fact a scenario straight out of a dream, and Ranma was just facing two incredible likenesses.

"Mo- um, sir... do you know who I am?"

The bespectacled man adjusted his glasses and peered at Ranma. "Well, you look a little like someone I used to know I guess, but I don't think so. Do you know me and I've simply forgotten you?"

Even his voice was the same, though a bit deeper due to his age. The doubt Ranma had been clinging too was nearly gone, there were just too many similarities to pretend it wasn't them any longer. Somehow he doubted Shampoo and Mousse both just happened to have nigh-identical thirty-something year old twins, who also happened to run a ramen joint, whom they had just never gotten around to mentioning.

The married couple was getting worried now. The boy in front of them was acting very oddly, and his expression was beginning to show panic. Before the man could ask the boy what was wrong or why he needed to talk to him, Ranma spoke again.

"Screw this." Ranma said aloud. He had to confirm it. Even if he was almost certain, he couldn't just make that assumption and turn out to have been wrong later. Subtlety be damned, it was time to be blunt. "Is... is that you, Shampoo?"

The woman looked taken aback. "Why, yes, that's my name... though I know its odd, so I usually go by Shan... how do you know my full name? Do I know you?"

"And Mousse, that's you, right? Please say no..."

The man pushed his glasses back up on his nose, rather wary of the boy at this point. Not many people knew of their "traditional" Amazon names; there was no reason this random teenager should... unless he wasn't just any random kid. "Yes... though like my wife, I go by an abbreviation. Call me Tsu."

Well, that settled it then.

It really was them.

Shampoo and Mousse, twenty years older than they should be. Running a ramen shop. In Shibuya.

...

Ranma abruptly smashed a fist down on the order counter. "Shampoo, where's Cologne?! She's got all that Amazon magic junk, surely she's got something to cure whatever this is!" he yelled.

Shampoo backed away slightly before frowning, shocked at the suddenness of Ranma's outburst, but quick to regain her composure. "Sir... please do not damage the property. I'm sure we can help if you just explain what the problem is. Just what are you referring too? Cure what? Why do you need cologne, and..." She trailed off, suddenly much more wary of the boy in front of her. "... just what did you mean about Amazons and magic?" This boy couldn't possibly know about _that_... in fact, how did he know her real name...?

Ranma's already open jaw locked in place at those words. This was too much to handle. On top of being way older than normal, Shampoo didn't even see anything wrong with the current situation. She acted as if she wasn't in Nerima less than a week ago, about half her current age and chasing him down on a weekly basis. Not to mention she didn't even seem to know who Cologne was. Considering how Mousse hadn't said any different, and was instead just looking at him slightly oddly, he didn't know what the pigtailed martial artist was talking about either.

This wasn't possible! What, had they been aged AND their memories had been erased or altered?! Why were they even IN Shibuya?! Where the hell was Cologne at and why hadn't she fixed this yet?! They'd gotten MARRIED?! Questions spun in the martial artist's head before he was snapped out of it by a sudden question from Mousse.

"Sir, before you ask us anything more or attempt to smash our counter again, it's MY turn to ask a question." Mousse's voice was hard and sharp now, though Ranma had no idea why. "How could you possibly know our full names? Even our closest friends and associates do not know us by those, nor have we ever told them. So I ask you..." he paused for a moment and took off his glasses, revealing a startlingly menacing glare leveled at Ranma. "...why do you know them?"

Of all the questions Mousse could have asked, that was not one Ranma had expected. To him, it seemed obvious. But then, apparently Shampoo and Mousse had forgotten about Nerima and everything that happened in it entirely. But they said he looked familiar...

"Don't pretend you didn't hear me, boy. Answer me." Mousse was still leveling that glare at him, and Shampoo had joined in. Man was it weird to hear Mousse referring to him as "boy"...

"I know them because you two told me." Before the two could ask for any clarification, Ranma continued, hoping that maybe if he reminded them who he was they might snap out of it. It worked on Akane, after all...

"Shampoo, Mousse, don't you recognize me?! I'm Ranma! The guy you've been chasing after for the past year or so?! You," he gestured to 'Shan', "because you were trying to marry me, and you," he gestured to 'Tsu', "because you never got it through your thick head that I didn't really WANT to marry her! Remember?"

Ranma knew he'd made some sort of critical mistake when the glaring suddenly intensified. Mousse was the first to speak. "How ridiculous. Shan has been my wife for over fifteen years, she has most certainly not spent that time chasing after you. That story makes absolutely no sense."

Shampoo nodded in agreement. "He's right. Neither of us know you, and even if we did there's almost no way we would have told you our full names. Now explain how you really know them, or-"

Suddenly, Shampoo paused, mid tirade. "Wait..." She put a finger to her lips, apparently thinking about something. "D-did you say your name was... Ranma?"

Ranma quickly stopped cringing (oddly more because of Mousse than Shampoo for once) as a grin spread across his face. Had his name been enough? "Yep, that's me, Ranma Saotome. Remember me now?"

Shampoo and Mousse looked stricken. "R-ranma Saotome? That's impossible!" Mousse sputtered out. "Ranma died years ago, and he was in his twenties! You can't be him!"

"R-ranma?" Shampoo whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

"Wait, what? No, I died yesterday, and I ain't ever been older than I am now! What do yo-" Suddenly there was a kitchen knife pointed at his face. Looked like Amazon or not, Mousse still knew how to use Hidden Weapons. How...?

"Get. Out." Mousse said from behind gritted teeth. "I don't know who, or _what_ you really are, but you will leave immediately. Whatever sort of trick this is, it will not work on us."

Ranma slumped. This was some seriously powerful memory alteration. He could keep trying, but that would probably lead to a fight, and he was already on a time limit for a different problem altogether...

"Damn it..." Gritting his teeth, Ranma slowly turned and walked away, vowing to come back and fix whatever this was as soon as he was alive again.

hHhHh

As he walked out the door, Shampoo turned to her husband. "Tsu... if that really was Ranma..."

"It wasn't." Mousse replied stiffly. "Even in our history, there has never been a recorded case of someone coming back to life. But there has to be a reason someone would try to make us believe Ranma was back. Let's talk about this after closing."

And so that was that. Mousse returned to the back and Shampoo returned to cooking. But even so, the question lingered in their minds- if that boy hadn't been Ranma, just who was he?

iIiIi

Uzuki was quickly losing her patience with her flame haired partner, who was seemingly waiting for the Second Coming to finish his last bite of noodles. She couldn't speed up the underachieving slacker of a reaper she'd made a pact with and she knew it, but that didn't mean she didn't get frustrated with his tendencies to do things as _sloooooowly_ as possible. In fact, that happened more often than not, especially when she had to buy.

Bored out of her mind and tired of pointlessly asking him to hurry, she glanced over at the commotion occurring at the counter. She didn't get to hear much of the conversation before the a knife suddenly shot out of the long haired man's sleeve, and some harsh words were exchanged. Shortly after, the boy walked out of the restaurant, a grim expression on his face. Uzuki watched enraptured. Not that she really cared about civilian altercations, but usually the ones she witnessed didn't involve actual weaponry, nor did they often take place in restaurants. Plus there was nothing _else_ going on at the moment really, unless one got a thrill out of watching food go cold. As the tip of the teen's pigtail slipped outside, something clicked in Uzuki's brain.

The pink haired reaper poked her partner, who was _slowly_ slurping up the noodles hanging off the edge of his chopsticks. God, the bean paste was almost better, at least he could walk around with that. "...hey Kariya, wasn't that guy dressed like the girl that reaper was talking up yesterday?"

One of the nondescript hoodie Harriers had come in at the end of the day and started loudly talking with the rest of the faceless masses about some red haired girl with a pigtail in red and black Chinese clothes, betting on how long she would last or if she might actually win. Apparently she was going through the game without psychs or even a partner somehow, so she was given pretty low odds at surviving, but the original guy had seemed pretty smug by the time he was done making bets.

Kariya finally finished up the last of his noodles and responded. "I guess... what about it? Maybe they changed clothes or something, or they just bought the same clothes from somewhere. You know fashion around here is about as fickle as it gets." he drawled, savoring the last of the taste. "Besides, that was pretty obviously a guy. Does it really matter? We've already hit our quota for the week..."

The pink haired reaper scowled. She would motivate this bum if it took her the rest of her time as a Harrier Reaper, which she probably wouldn't still BE if she had been able to figure out how to do so. "It's not about the "quota" you came up with so you could do the absolute minimum amount of work while still staying alive Kariya, it's about taking down powerful players and looking good so we can get promoted! Come on, you don't find it even a little interesting? This week's jerk of a Game Master mentioned the same girl for the little time she was even around."

Uzuki was still bitter about that. She had doubted she would get picked for this week's Game Master, but she had hoped her performance during the previous week was good enough that she might at least have a shot. But then this albino girl whose eyes indicated she probably either was on or had been on way too many drugs had shown up and arbitrarily been picked instead. Maybe it wouldn't have stung so much if Uzuki had any idea where this girl had come from, but she seemed to have shown up out of _nowhere_. She certainly hadn't been part of the Harriers, and from what Uzuki could remember, she hadn't even been a prior player- at least, not from around here. And the girl was horrible not just in personality, but at the job, too- you were supposed to at least let the players have SOME sort of chance, or at the very least let them think that so you could crush their hope all the better later on. But no, she'd just let loose half the harrier and barrier reapers and told them to do what they wanted, wiping out most of the players on the first day. What the Composer had been thinking when making HER Game Master Uzuki still couldn't puzzle out. But she could at least make herself look good for a chance next week...

"Come on, that guy reminded me. If nothing else I'd say the girl is at least worth looking around for to see if there's _something _interesting going on this week." And to wipe her and any other players they came across out, of course, but saying that wasn't going to get her partner out of his seat.

Kariya sighed. "Alright, alright, we can look around for mystery girl..." To Uzuki's surprise, he got up and started walking away. Could it be he was actually listening to her and leaving, with that little prompti-

"...a little later. Hey, miss, can I get another bowl of the Miso Ramen?" Kariya finished as he strolled up to the counter.

The pink haired reaper gave a cry of anguish and slumped in her seat. They were never going to get out of here...

sSsSs

Being outside did not put Ranma's mind at ease whatsoever. His hunger was gone, overtaken by the turmoil in his mind. As if this game weren't enough, somehow Shampoo and Mousse were... _changed_, and he had no idea how or why. He couldn't even really focus on them until this game was over, there wasn't enough time... not that he was making much progress without a cell phone or any other players around. He glanced at his palm. Two hours and ten minutes remaining... he needed to find someone with the mission parameters.

And yet, as he walked, looking for anyone walking through other people, or perhaps battling tattoo animals in the street, his mind continued to drift back to the Shampoo and Mousse mystery. How could that possibly have happened? Ranma supposed he could just leave things as they were even after he came back to life, it would be nice to not need to deal with the Amazons alongside everything else. Then again, he had gotten most of his best techniques from them, and even as much of a hassle to deal with as they were, they weren't really bad people per say. Screwed up, but not really _bad_. Could he really, in good conscience, leave them minus twenty years of their life, running a small ramen shop in a foreign city, with their memories altered past recognition?

No, no, he couldn't. Curse his stupidly forgiving nature. So many questions... how had Mousse still known Hidden Weapons if he didn't remember being an Amazon anymore? And where had Cologne been? Did whatever had done this just gotten rid of her because her knowledge from being an Amazon was the only thing keeping her alive? Ranma really couldn't imagine Cologne going down without one hell of a fight. Surely someone would have noticed any battle fought on Cologne's scale, especially since everyone else probably had noted his own disappearance by now. Nerima was probably in an uproar with both him and the Amazons disappearing... meaning Akane and Ukyo probably thought he had run off with Shampoo. Crap.

Then again, he didn't even know if this had just affected the Amazons! What if the same sort of memory-aging thing had happened to everyone else in Nerima?! Ranma shivered. No, no, that was unlikely, unless it was magic on an absolutely huge scale. He needed to calm down and think about this.

Okay, time to split the problem up. Instead of focusing on the aging, what could have made them forget him? Xi Fang Gao technique, maybe? That would have explained their lingering sense of familiarity, but Ranma didn't think it seemed likely. For one, it was an Amazon technique to begin with, so they would probably have known how to counter and evade it. Even if they had been surprised, Ranma was pretty sure the shampoo had never been able to alter memories, just erase them, so while they were correct in thinking he was dead, there was no reason they should think he was older when it happened.

Maybe they really WERE doppelgangers? Perfect ones, like Copycat Ken? Maybe one of them even WAS him! It would explain both the lack of memory AND the aging... but why would anyone do that? What was the point? Whoever did it wouldn't POSSIBLY have been able to know he'd be here, not to mention that even if it was supposed to be a trick, it didn't accomplish anything besides confusing him!

Okay, he wasn't making any headway trying to figure out the memory loss. So, time to switch focuses again, this time with more thought to the cause instead of the results.

Ranma sifted through his memory for anything he could think of that would speed up a person's aging. He thought he'd heard a rumor in passing at some point a few years back about age changing foods, but aside from that he couldn't recall anything that could double someone's age in a day or two. No matter how hard he thought, he couldn't think of anything that could do something like that, magic stuff included.

"Ergh, this is hopeless!" There was no reason whatever had aged them had to be something he knew about! How much magic stuff he'd encountered had he actually **heard** of before it showed up in person?! He didn't have a clue what could have made the two of them age so much in less than two day-

Ranma paused. "Wait a second..."

While racking his brain for magic items he'd encountered, Ranma had remembered the Nanban Mirror. While that didn't actually age someone, it brought a different idea to mind- instead of them aging, had Ranma maybe gone forward through time? The martial artist briefly mused on the fact that he was one of a rare few that couldn't actually rule out time travel as a possible explanation for a situation. Was it possible in this case though? It sure didn't seem likely. Going forwards would have been a first, and Ranma didn't even know how he would have gotten here this ti-

"Those PHONES!" the martial artist suddenly exclaimed aloud. That mystery was finally clearing up. If the miniature looking cell phone things were actually just futuristic ones, it would make sense that they looked different and could display words, and were actually portable, the way cell phones were supposed to be in the first place. Even if Ranma had no idea how he would have gotten to the future, the possibility was looking more and more likely.

But... if this was the future, then-!

"Er... hey, you wouldn't happen to be a player, would you?"

Ranma spun around. Shin and Juu stood before him, apparently having seen the people walking through him while he stood and contemplated. After all that time Ranma had spent looking for them, they had found him instead.

Unfortunately, this was possibly the worst time they could have chosen to show up.

"WHAT YEAR IS IT?!" Ranma babbled out in a panic.

Shin and Juu immediately backed up from the obviously unstable pigtailed teen. "I-it's... uh... u-um..." Juu panicked and hid herself behind Shin.

"I SAID WHAT YEAR IS IT?! PLEASE!" Ranma yelled, nearly tripping over the words.

Shin quickly stammered out an answer, which was not the one Ranma was hoping to hear.

"W-**what**?!" That was almost twenty years past what he last remembered! Damnit, this really **was** the future wasn't it?!

"Y-... you gotta be kiddin' me... no, you REALLY GOTTA BE KIDDIN' ME..."

Now Ranma was getting pissed all over again. Just when he'd FINALLY been starting to get a handle on things yet another major problem had been thrown on top. Even DEATH didn't afford him a respite! It was just like Nerima, especially the part about having no clue how to solve any of it!

Trembling with Hibiki-like fury, Ranma shook with rage that simply could not be contained. And indeed it did not stay that way.

"I AM SO SICK OF THIS!" he screamed, not that anyone sans the two shocked players in front of him visibly heard him. "GIVE ME A BREAK ALREADY! AS IF THIS PROBABLY RIGGED GAME WASN'T ENOUGH! NOW YOU'RE THROWING **TIME TRAVEL** IN?! DAMN IT KAMI WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?! GO PICK ON RYOGA SO HE CAN AT LEAST HAVE SOME SORT OF EXCUSE NEXT TIME HE COMPLAINS THAT SOMETHING WAS MY FAULT! OR KUNO! YEAH, EITHER ONE OF EM'! SHOW SWORD BOY THAT HE'S SPEAKIN' TRUTH WHEN HE TALKS ABOUT THE 'VENGEANCE OF HEAVEN' LIKE IT'S ACTUALLY GONNA HAPPEN! HELL, GO AFTER ANY OF THAT FAMILY FOR ALL I CARE! BUT STOP! SCREWING! ME! OVER!"

His piece said, Ranma simply stood there with his chin raised towards the sky and his mouth slightly open, an indescribable look on his face. He had to admit, that felt good. He never really got the chance to release his anger at anything without fear of reprisal, there was always an argument and likely a fight waiting for him if he dared be upset about any of the weirdness and idiocy his life threw at him. But none of the people who would do that were around to hear him, so it was okay to explode for once, right?

Upset or not, Ranma was never really one to angst over what life threw at him, being more pragmatic than that. So, quickly cycling past the first two stages of Martial Arts Problem Solving (1. 'Question Pops to see if its his fault' and 2. 'Try to ignore the problem in hopes it'll go away on its own'), Ranma moved through the third (3. 'Start thinking clearly about the problem once you've gotten out your initial anger or annoyance (assuming you could).') the fourth (4. 'Accept the probably stupid problem even if it really ISN'T your fault.') and the fifth (5. 'Fix the problem by any means necessary, because as stage 2 proved it ain't gonna fix itself.') in quick succession, possibly faster than he ever had before. Most likely because there was no one around to distract his thought process or attack him while he was working through these.

Anger temporarily spent by cathartic sky screaming, Ranma settled on dealing with the "dead" problem before trying to fix the time travel one. He could deal with time stupidity (and it almost certainly was stupidity going by his track record) later, when an actual solution, or at least more information, presented itself. There was no point in fixating on it right now. Right now, what he needed was to get the mission parameters from Shin and Juu, or he wouldn't even be around to deal with it anyways.

His mind made up, Ranma turned towards the pair to-

Oh, great. There they were in the distant crowd, running away, apparently freaked out from his raging at the heavens.

"No. Screw this. I am NOT dealing with any more problems than I absolutely HAVE to today."

hHhHh

"Shin, come on! Hurry!"

The green haired boy panted, obviously worn out even from the brief bit of running. "Sorry... *pant* I may be skinny- *pant* but I've never been in the best of shape..." If only they hadn't had to run. They were going to ask that guy if they'd seen a red haired girl with a pigtail, but that hadn't exactly panned out. While he had obviously been a player, he was equally obviously... unbalanced somehow, and Shin wanted to be nowhere near him if at all possible.

Groaning, Shin pulled himself to his feet, only to yelp and flinch back when he saw the black haired boy glowering at him from above. Juu was a few feet behind him, looking as if she wanted to do something but had no idea what.

The pigtailed teen got straight to the point. "Guys, stop being scared. It's me, Ranma. Ignore my outburst there for a sec. What's the mission?"

"...Wha?" Juu mumbled.

"...what she said." Shin responded. Ranma? Huh? He did sort of look like her, and they even were dressed the same way, but this was... obviously not Ranma. Unless he or she was one _amazing_ crossdresser or crossplayer, in which case, wow.

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, ancient Chinese curse, very tragic tale, switch genders with cold and hot water, tell ya' about it later. I can't show ya' right now, so just trust me, I'm Ranma. And I don't got a cell phone so I don't got the mission. I've been lookin' for you two, or any other dead person, so I can figure out what it is and finish it, so, please? I'd like to have time leftover to eat since I managed to miss my chance a few minutes ago."

"Wait, wait, wait. Wait." Shin waved his hands back and forth in a placating manner. Internally he was wondering just who didn't have a cell phone in this day and age, but maybe it just hadn't been on him when he died. "Okay, I believe you're a player, since you can see us and all, and I'll give you the mission, but unless you really are Ranma there's no way you can finish it. I'm pretty sure the Game Master was told by that reaper blocking the way to 104 what Ranma could do, since it obviously was made with her in mind."

"Look, I AM Ranma." Ranma stated succinctly. "I'll prove it to ya'. No partner, see? Same clothes, same hair except the color, and yesterday I met you when you were bein' attacked by frog noise and saved ya' without any 'psyches'. That enough proof for ya'?"

"Er..." Shin wasn't sure how to react to that. It seemed like plenty of proof that this was Ranma, but, a gender changing curse? Really?

Well, they were in a game whose eventual goal was coming back to life from after death, so maybe he didn't have the right to be skeptical about curses. Still, he couldn't help having some doubt...

"I... suppose that's enough..." Shin said, a bit unsure about saying such. It didn't seem right. What if this was some sort of trick by the reapers? They'd already shown themselves to be running the game unfairly if this was the mission they gave. So what if this "Ranma" was just...

The pigtailed boy groaned, a bit exasperated. "Look, I JUST, and I do mean just, like, less than half an hour ago just, changed back to normal. I'd really appreciate if you guys would just trust me on this, it was kind of a minor ordeal to get the water in the first place."

While Shin shifted uncomfortably on his feet, Juu surprisingly spoke up. "Um... the, mission is to destroy five teams of Noise, w-without using any psyches." Juu told Ranma with a bit more confidence than usual. They could use all the help they could get, and even if Shin wasn't sure, Juu was fairly certain this really was Ranma.

Ranma grinned, his determination renewed. Finally, he had the elusive mission. "Thanks, Juu. Guess that explains why you guys couldn't do it." He checked his hand. Still two hours left. He could do that easy, and pick up some food as soon as he was finished. "That shouldn't be much of a problem, the only psyche I found was worthless in a fight anyways."

Juu surprised Shin by following up on that train of thought. "Y-you found a psyche? Wha... what does it do?"

Ranma's grin turned into more of a sardonic smile at that. "Well, it turned everything around me blue, and I could read everyone's minds if I concentrated. There were these weird symbol things that turned out to be noise above me, and it basically stopped ti-" Ranma stopped mid sentence.

Time.

The pin had slowed down time.

He was stuck in the future by unknown means.

He'd been using that pin... a pin that had done all but frozen time... and in Ranma's experience, things that seemed to good to be true often WERE...

Shin and Juu glanced at each other, each thinking the same thing. That couldn't be right... "Uh, Ranma...?" "That doesn't sound like..."

Ranma didn't hear them. Fishing it out of his pocket, Ranma glared as hard as he could at the black insignia pin without actually activating it. Whatever had happened to Shampoo and Mousse, he was almost certain this pin had had a part in it.

"This is all YOUR FAULT..." Ranma snarled through gritted teeth, winding back his arm to chuck the Kami forsaken thing as far away as he possibly could.

Shin blanched, seeing what Ranma was about to do. "Ranma, you're not thinking clearly! Calm down!"

Ranma froze mid throw. "...that so? Because I think I'm thinking very clearly. This thing screwed me over in a major way."

"No, Shin's right!" Juu shouted, her stutter all but forgotten. "You can't throw that! We're not sure it's even a psyche, it's our player pin! Every player has one, you need that pin to play the game at all! If you throw that you'll never get back to life! You probably won't even survive the day!"

At that, Ranma lowered his arm. Well of course. It figured that the time traveling pin was a crucial item for this stupid game. "...so I have to keep this until the game is over? Given what's it's done so far, I'd really rather not have it on me all the time... so long as I don't have to use it, I guess..." Then again, he probably would need it to return to the past, so maybe it was best they'd stopped him from throwing it regardless of its "game" importance.

Shin shook his head. "No, Ranma, you'll have to use it. It's the only thing that can let you find and fight Noise."

"Well what good is it to come back to life then?!" Ranma snapped. "If every time you use this thing ya' get sent farther forward in time, what's the point of coming back to life?! After only two uses I'm 20 years ahead of when I should be, so unless I can find a time traveling artifact, which are kind of rare, I'll probably get stuck a hundred years or more in the future! WE'D be stuck that far in the future! Why are you two so... okay with that?!"

Shin and Juu were utterly perplexed. Forward in time? Future? What was he talking about?

"Ranma," Shin started, "the pin doesn't do anything to time. I guess it sort of slows things down, but that's only how it seems to the user. Aside from letting you see and fight noise, as well as read minds, it does nothing besides mark you as a player. It can't be used in battle, or at least that was the impression we were under..." Shin frowned. "Although, I admit we haven't exactly tried that yet. We've only been in two battles, one of which was the one you had to save us from. The other we did on the way to find you, just so we could practice using our normal psyches."

"Bull**shit** it does nothing to time. When I..." Ranma trailed off, support to Shin's claim suddenly coming to mind. Come to think of it, immediately after waking up dead, he'd seen people using those phones, which was before he'd ever used that pin. Before he'd even picked it up, in fact. Nothing had "changed" between the before and after of him obtaining the pin, he still had gotten a quick view of the populace and buildings before he'd stepped on it. Everyone had had those same cell phones before he'd even touched the thing. If they only were that advanced because he was in the future, then the pin couldn't be the cause...

Juu interrupted his thought process with a simple question. "So... does that mean... you're a time traveler?"

oOoOo

"...come ON! This is zetta boring! From what you've said, you were all on board with this until that radian got himself fractalized, so give me one good reason I should stick around any longer than a single planck!"

"Man, you really need to calm down... when I said I wanted to talk I didn't mean argue. Here, have some coffee."

"I don't WANT any coffee! What I WANT is to leave this shop so I can take out the new insignificant figure in this equation!"

"You need to stay put for now. The time will come, but here and now is not it. Trust me, I wouldn't recommend trying what you're thinking at the moment."

"Oh? And if I decided to just walk out of here right now, exactly how the factor would you stop me?"

"...do you really need me to answer that? I showed you how once already."

"...fine. How long am I stuck hanging around this dump then?"

"Until the end of the week. Feel free to kick back and relax until then. Of course, I somehow doubt you actually will, given how much effort I know you put into practice every week."

"Got that right. Her erasure is gonna be so acute that this plane won't know what hit it."

"I figured as much. Train all you like, but keep the destruction to a minimum."

...

"...oh, and no giant piles made of the furnishings, got it?"

"...factor."

mMmMm

The week is only gonna get MORE stressful and confusing, Ranma. You might want to stop freaking out every time you learn something surprising. To everyone else? It'll all make sense eventually. When Ranma finally gets all the facts straight. Mwahahahaha.

For those wondering, this takes place shortly after the end of the anime. Ranma hasn't faced Herb or Saffron, and is still sixteen. Figured I'd clear that up since I doubt a place will be found in story to do so any time soon.

Also, I'm trying to avoid use of "God", but technically "Kami" (and yes, "Kami-Sama" also) is just as incorrect. So what am I supposed to do when its use is called for? I doubt I can work around it every time it seems necessary. Any suggestions? (To clarify, after a review stated I should just use "Kami-Sama"- Kami more accurately means "spirit", and has no literal translation. We colloquially use it as a synonym for a Shinto deity or God, even "The" God, but a better translation would probably be something like both The Force and the spirits it gives birth too, holding everything together while also being a part of everything via spirits. So... yeah, it's still an incorrect use. Maybe I'm worried too much about something this small though.)


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